


Guilt Can Do Terrible Things

by Gallantly



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Guilty Audrey, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:07:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gallantly/pseuds/Gallantly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Audrey doesn't think she'll ever forgive herself, but one day she decides to act on those thoughts, and goes down a spiral that she may never come back from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Things She Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't get this story out of my head, so I just had to write it down, and I'm forever angry that no one ever mention Audrey sitting with the noose around her neck in Rachel's room. I hope you like it!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Scream!

Audrey turned the lid of the pink porcelain container over in her hands, letting the rough parts on the bottom of it scratch lightly against her skin, and tracing the glossy rose design with the pad of her thumb. She sighed, reaching out towards her bedside table, where the bottom half of the container sat, and placing the lid beside the bottom. This small, pink, porcelain bowl was all she had left of Rachel, it was all she could take without Rachel’s parents noticing, they didn’t want Audrey to have anything, they really never wanted to see her ever again. To put it bluntly, they hated her, they thought that their poor, precious Rachel had been condemned by Audrey, and that Audrey simply used Rachel as toy to occupy her time. Which was never true, she had loved Rachel, hell, she still loved Rachel, even when she was sitting six feet under ground, rotting.

Audrey shook her head, trying to clear it, she hated thinking about Rachel like that, she preferred to remember her smiling, or giggling at some stupid joke that Audrey had made. She missed Rachel more than she missed anyone else in her life, more than she missed her mom, who was going through chemo in another state, more than Emma, who was off at therapy, and almost never picked up the phone when anyone other than Kieran called. Rachel was above everyone, even other people that had passed, Her late grandma, uncle, and Piper. Yes, she missed Piper, well, she missed the Piper she thought she knew, the one that had told her that she wasn’t a monster, not the Piper that had turned out to be the person she was afraid of becoming.

“I'm so sorry Rachel.” She said, voice wavering and breaking, “I-I got you killed, and I don’t even have the guts to confess it to anyone.” She buried her head in her hands, biting back at tears as they pricked at the corners of her eyes. Her gaze shifted back to the container, thinking about what it held, the main reason she had stolen it. Even in life, Rachel hadn’t wanted her parents to know that she cut herself, and even though they had found out via the autopsy, she doubted that Rachel's would’ve wanted her parents to see the blades she had dug into her forearm with. So, Audrey took them, she knew that she probably didn’t have to take the entire container, but she really wanted something of Rachel’s, even if her parents almost found out that she was the one who took them.

She took a deep breath, lifting her head up slowly, and moving her now red eyes in the general direction of the fancy porcelain, she stretched her hand towards the container, hesitating when she reached it. Any sense of self worth that she still had was killed when she shot Piper, when she found out that she was reason that all these people had died, and that she had ruined the lives of everyone she cared about. With that thought in mind, she carefully pulled one of the two razors out from the jar, holding it between her pointer finger and her thumb, letting the end puncture the skin on her thumb slightly, something she could easily pass off as a simple paper cut. She turned in over in her fingers a few times, letting the dim lighting in her bedroom glint off the sides and reflect on the wall to her right.

Slowly, she slipped her hand under the elastic wrist of her leather jacket, and pushed it up to a point just above her elbow, letting the fabric rub against her soft skin. She twirled between her fingers a couple times, before lining up the sharp end of the blade to the same place that she’d seen Rachel’s scars, a place she constantly checked to make sure that she was alright. A short, bitter laugh escaped her throat at that, she practically checked Rachel’s wrists everyday she saw her, and if she ever found a new scar, she would hold and comfort her until she told her why she had hurt herself. Only, she was the person that needed to be checked on now, and she had no one to do it, and she didn’t deserve it.

Audrey pushed razor into her skin before she could think anything else, trying to push the self loathing thoughts from her mind, and cutting herself seemed to do that perfectly. She glided it slowly side to side across her skin, letting her mind go blank, and focus on the blood creeping down her bare arm. She winced slightly when she pressed down farther, and pulled the bloody blade out of her, only to position it a few centimeters below the last cut, and press it back in. She closed her eyes, moving the blade blindly to new place, and driving it through her skin, finally letting the tears that she had been biting back spill, and not bothering to wipe the tear track from her face.

She was just about to move the razor again, when her phone chirped, signaling that she had gotten a new text message. Her hands slipped in surprise, pushing the blade halfway into her arm, which caused her to cry out in unexpected pain, and peel her wet eyes open, blinking the tears out of her eyes so that she could see. Shaky hands pulled the razor out of her arm, and wiping it on her gray shirt to get the blood off, trying to get rid of any evidence that she had done this. She threw the razor back into the porcelain container, letting it clank against the side, as she rushed to pick the top up and place it gently on the top. She breathed out, pulling her sleeve down to back where it was supposed to rest on her wrist, running a slightly bloody hand through her hair as she looked around to locate her phone. She found it wrapped in blankets beside her, the screen was shining, and a new notification flashed onscreen, it was just her dad, telling her that he wasn’t going to be able to make it home tonight. Typical. He had scared the shit out of her though, because if she got caught doing this, she would be able to explain it, especially since her dad would definitely go ask Noah what was upsetting her, and that would just worry Noah as well.

She typed ‘rachelsgirl’ into the phone as it demanded a passcode, clicking the ‘messages’ icon on-screen, her eyes searched the short list of names, ‘Noah’, ‘Emma’, ‘Jake’, ‘Brooke’, ‘Kieran’, ‘Dad’ ... and, ‘Rachel’. Her breath hitched as she read her name, she hadn;t been able to delete it, actually, she would text it constantly, using it as a way to talk to Rachel, even though in heart, she knew that Rachel was gone. Audrey pulled her lip between her teeth, letting her hand hover over ‘Dad’, before sighing and clicking on ‘Rachel’ instead. The whole screen was full of texts from her, she scrolled back up, reaching the point that they last spoke via text, with a simple, yet heartbreaking, ‘I love you, Audrey.” sent by , three hours before she died.  Everything after that was just Audrey in a  one sided conversation.

Audrey shook her head, switching to the chat with her father, and skimming over what was apparently supposed to be an apology, but it seemed more like an excuse. She didn't bother reading it fully, she just replied ‘It's all fine Dad, see you in the morning.’ this reply had become incredibly uniform, since her dad barely ever came home anymore, spending practically every second of his life with his “friend”, Wendy. Audrey wasn't stupid, not that her father believed that, but she was actually incredibly smart, maybe it was Noah rubbing off on her. Although, even an idiot could see what was going in between the two of them, but Audrey didn't want to tell her mom, she was dealing with enough already. She figured that distressing her mother was probably the last thing she needed at this point.

Audrey hopped off of her bed, moving swiftly towards her bathroom door, which was sitting slightly agar across the room, with the light on, letting a sliver of bright light in the otherwise dim room. She pushed the door open when she reached it, letting it swing, which caused a great amount of squeaking from the hinges. Cringing slightly at the sound, she made a mental note to tell Noah about that later, maybe the two of them could go out and buy some oil to fix it with.

She peeled her jacket off slowly , which was now warm, wet, and sticky with blood on her left forearm, luckily, the jacket was black, and it was only on the fabric on the inside, so you wouldn’t be able to see it unless it was inside out, and you were _really_ looking for it. Honestly, she could probably get most of it out if she tried hard enough, so she just set it on the bathroom counter, careful to not let the bloody sleeve touch the counter. She turned on the sink, letting the water run for few seconds, before sticking her forearm under it, trying to get most of the blood off of her arm, she angled her arm so that she could wash off the now watery blood that had pooled past where the water originally reached. Sighing, the pulled her arm out from underneath the water, but letting the water continue to run, so that she could wash the blood down the drain. She crossed the room, which was basically just a single step, to grab some toilet paper, she scrunched it up in her hand and placed it over the cuts. The paper slowly became dotted with blood, it was mesmerizing watching the deep red seep into the pure white.

A loud slam from somewhere below her knocked her out of her trance, the slam was accompanied by quick footsteps. The quick patter of feet grew louder against the wooden stairs as someone made their way upstairs. Audrey panicked, she was currently the only one home, so she had no idea who could be barreling upstairs. She grabbed the edge of the doorframe with her free hand, and shut the door quickly but quietly, not wanting who ever had intruded her house to know she was there. Her bathroom door didn't have a lock on it, so she braced the door with her elbow, and placed her ear against the cold wood so that she could hear who it was if they happened to come in her room. She sat there for a few seconds, getting increasingly worried at how loud her breathing was. The door to her bedroom flung open, and from what she could hear, slammed roughly into the wall, causing her to flinch and pull her ear away from the wall. Luckily, the intruder spoke his next words loud and clear.

“Audrey?” The voice was raspy, and muffled by the door between them, but it was very clearly Noah's voice. She slumped against the door, letting out a mixture of a sigh and a groan, of course it was Noah, he knew where they hid their spare key, she had showed him when her parents finally deemed it safe to have a spare key again. It was pretty well hidden, anyone who didn’t know how to get it would set off an alarm, courtesy of Noah. She pushed herself upright, sighing and running a hand through her short, dark hair.

“In here!” She called, trying to calm her heavy breathing, “Foster, you scared the crap out of me.” she added, not quite sure if it was loud enough for him to hear, but apparently it was, as he breathed out an apology. She reached her hand towards the doorknob, planning to give Noah the best bitchface that she could, when she spotted the bunched up toilet paper that was now sticking to her arm from the blood that was still seeping steadily out of her arm. So, instead of turning the bronze doorknob, she turned the lock that sat directly in the middle with a satisfying ‘click’. She peeled the toilet paper off her arm, dumping it into the toilet and pulling the roll of its mount on the wall, and tearing a piece off to clean some of the blood that didn’t get absorbed by the paper. Her movements were delicate, but quick as she wiped off the rest of the blood, dumped it in the toilet with the original toilet paper, and flushed it down. She the paced the roll on her arm, and began to twirl it around her forearm like a bandage, once, twice, three times, enough to cover her cuts a few times. She ripped the toilet paper off when she was sure that it was well covered.

The doorknob jiggled slightly as Noah evidently tried to open it from the other side of the door, causing him to ask “Audrey, why is the door locked?” which was quite a stupid question, in her opinion. She rolled her eyes dramatically, setting the toilet paper roll on the bathroom counter, next to the toilet, so it seemed like she was just too lazy to put it on the mount. She looked down at her hamper, with sat against the wall, roughly a quarter full of random pieces of clothing she hadn’t brought to the laundry room yet. She reached down and grabbed a dark red shirt with long sleeves, that way, if she did bleed through, it would be all that noticeable.

“I think you should definitely catch your breath dude, I’m using the bathroom, why wouldn’t I lock the door?” she asked incredulously, pulling on the red shirt quickly, but easing it on to her cut forearm, be careful to not disturb the toilet paper. Once she had made sure that the bandages didn’t get moved off when she pulled on the shirt, she turned on the sink letting it run for a while, to make it seem like she was washing her hands. She shut it off when she thought that it was long enough to be believable, and unlocked her bathroom door with another ‘click’, and pulled the door open, coming face-to-face with a very clearly elated Noah. He was practically jumping with joy, causing Audrey to lift an eyebrow at him, with only caused Noah to give her a tiny smile.

“So you haven’t heard then?” His smile grew into a toothy grin, Audrey just stared up at him, confusion written all over her face. She found her hand subconsciously crawling towards where she had cut herself before, and she forced it back by her side, not wanting to give NOah any clues as to what she had done. But, obviously hadn’t worked, as the next words out of his mouth were “You alright? You seem a bit... I dunno, pale I guess.” Her eyes immediately widened, as she felt panic coursing through her veins again.

“Dude, you just invaded my house, without telling me you were coming, only a few months after all of our friends were being murdered, you scared the shit out of me.” She wasn’t lying, but she wasn’t telling the whole truth either, Noah seemed convinced though, as a very guilty looked crossed his face. “Anyways, what are you so happy about? What happened, your podcast reach a new milestone in viewers or something?” she said, changing the subject as casually as she could, and as soon as she did, his face lit up.

“Very funny, but it’s actually something you’ll care about, Emma’s coming back! She has deemed herself stable enough to rejoin our little jamboree.” Audrey’s eyes widened again, this time with surprise, not panic. She felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, Emma and her had barely spoken since she went to therapy, she was finally going to see Emma again, and maybe, just maybe, she would be able to get over the overwhelming guilt that was constantly with her. Around everyone, Kieran, who lost his dad, Noah, who lost Riley, Brooke, who lost Nina, Will, and Riley, she watched the sad looks on their faces when people talked about someone who died, or when they saw something that reminded them of someone. The guilt was overwhelming, but It was always the worse when she thought about Emma, who now suffered from PTSD because of her, and that wasn’t going away, ever, Emma had lost the most during the attacks and should would never be able to go back to the way she lived. Maybe now, seeing Emma better, not healed, but better, would her overcome the feelings haunted her, the feeling that had her wondering if she deserved to die.

“That’s awesome Noah, but why do I have a feeling that you are more excited for a different reason.” She said, clearly referencing his podcast and the fact that he had been dying for an interview with Emma ever since he took over the podcast, as she crossed her arms in front her, a goofy smirk on her face. Noah chuckled, bringing up his hands in defense, and stepping on step back, with a goofy smile of his own. After a few seconds, he let his hands drop down by his sides, as she cocked her head to the side, waiting for an answer.

“Okay, okay, you got me, I really, _really_ want an interview with her, I mean, she’s the person that Piper was obsessed with, It would be awesome to have her on it.” He replied defensively, only get an eye roll from an amused Audrey, who had actually helped him out quite a lot when it came to the podcast. She recorded things for the website, she helped him manage most of the website, helped keep the murderboard up-to-date, and was on the podcast many times, since she was always at his house anyway. She almost jumped out her skin when Noah gasped, bringing his hand up to his mouth, “You know what would be awesome?! A joint interview with you and Emma, the two survivor girls that ended Piper’s murder spree, once and for all., what do you say?”

Audrey stared up at him for a moment, leaving him hanging in silence for a moment, before caving and saying “Fine, I’m down.” which got a small ‘Yes!’ from Noah, along with him clapping his hands together. “But, you are aware that you have to get Emma to agree as well right?” she said, bringing Noah from his high temporarily, while he thought about the chances that Emma would say yes to his proposition. It didn’t take all that long for a smile to begin playing on his lips again, that highly surprised Audrey, since Noah had been a realistic person. “You really think she’ll, be okay with doing this?”

“I’m… cautiously optimistic, I will have to dance around the topic for a while, maybe get the idea in her head, make her think she thought it up. Hey, Kieran’s throwing a welcome home party for her, wanna come? It’ll only be the lakewood six.” He offered, knowing she didn’t really like parties, but he figured that she would probably want to see Emma when she got home. Besides, she was comfortable around the Lakewood six, even though, at the mention of party, her face contorted in disgust. Although, who could blame her, the few times she had been to parties ended with Noah getting almost drowned in a lake, and the other caused her to a deep slash across her arm and everyone at school looking at her like she was a murderer, since she shot Piper.

“Sure.” She said, not really opposed to spending time with her friends, especially Emma, since she hadn’t seen her in so long. Noah smiled at this, and Noah Foster had this kind of infectious smile that made you want to join him in his glee. She uncrossed her arms and returned his grin, shifting her gaze for a moment, and her face dropped, quite noticeably apparently, because Noah’s smile dropped as well, and his brows furrowed together. But, Audrey was too panicked to notice, sitting there, open, on her bedside table, was the porcelain container, holding the two small things that she did _not_ want Noah to find. She gulped, and vaguely noticed that Noah was saying something, and waving a hand in front of her face, but if found that, she had no idea what he’d do. He might tell her Dad, and no doubt that her Dad would get her a therapist, He might get mad at her, and she really didn’t want to lose him, he might get sad, and seeing him cry would break her.

Noah clapped his hands on her shoulders knocking her roughly out of her thoughts, her eyes darted to his, which were staring directly at her, full of worry and confusion. He didn’t say anything, he just stared, searching her face for answer, so, she tried her best to keep herself as stoic as possible. “Something’s wrong.” He stated quietly, letting go of her shoulders and straightening her back. Audrey started to deny it, only to be cut off by a very annoyed and determined Noah, “Stop lying, Audrey, I know you, I can tell when something’s wrong with you.” His voice wasn’t loud, it was just filled with worry, and a tiny bit of annoyance.

“Look, I…” she wasn’t about to confess her sins, that just wasn’t going to happen, Noah didn’t need to know. “You just… you really freaked me out okay? My dad texted, like, a minute before you showed up, saying he wasn’t going to home tonight.” She sighed, avoiding eye contact with Noah, she really didn’t like lying to him, but suddenly she seemed to have to do it a lot, since Noah was digging into Piper’s accomplice. Noah bit his lip, it must’ve obvious to him that there was more to it, but he didn’t pry.

Noah stepped towards her, and wrapped his arms tightly around her protectively. “I’m sorry” he whispered in her ear, she slowly brought her arms up, she didn’t know why she was hesitating, maybe because she felt that she didn’t deserve this comfort. But eventually, she wrapped her arms around his skinny body and murmured “It’s okay” into his chest, just loud enough to hear. Even with the warm embrace, she couldn’t keep her mind off her forearm, and, as much as she wanted to see Emma, it would mean another person she had to hide it from.

Plus, with the way she was feeling, this wouldn’t be the last time she cut.


	2. I'll Help You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank to everyone who left Kudos, and a double thank you to everyone who commented!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Scream.

Audrey never wore short sleeves anymore, it would show too much.

Even now, as some fictional girl shoved a knife into her unsuspecting friends abdomen, she was wearing long sleeves, with her black and red striped vest draped over it, and buttoned up, even though the uniform called for a short sleeved shirt. No one ever said anything to her about it, so she figured it wasn’t that big of a deal, and this way no one knew what covered her arms. Although once, a kid who couldn’t have been any older than six, asked her ‘What are those lines on your arms?’ it was an innocent question, but it scared the shit out of her. She hadn’t noticed that her sleeve had ridden up her arm slightly, exposing the scars that decorating the once smooth skin of her arms. If anyone other than the little kid had noticed, they hadn’t said anything, and she was grateful for that.

The onscreen victims screams mingled with the crashing sound of glass breaking as she was violently shoved out a window, and the majority of the people in the crowd gasped, and lurched back in their seats, whilst shoveling popcorn into their faces. Audrey, on the other hand, wasn’t impressed, she’d seen this movie about eleven times in the last three days, one of which was her seeing it with Noah, and in all honesty, it wasn’t even that good. She brushed her hair out of her eyes, just as her phone vibrated in her hand, which startled her slightly. It was a text from some unknown number, which would’ve been terrifying, if it was three months ago, when Piper was murdering everyone she knew. But now, it just meant that some kid wanted to prank her, and apparently someone she knew, since the message was ‘GOING TO THE PARTY TONIGHT?’. Probably just Jake being an ass, this was his kind of thing anyway, she just replied with a cliche ‘Who is this?’.

‘YOUR CONSCIENCE.’ Audrey furrowed her brow, what did they mean by that? whatever it was she was certainly not amused, so with an annoyed look on her face, the typed in ‘HAHA. Funny. Not.’ and sent it. Not her best work, but she was tired, she had been at work all day and her brain was starting to get relatively sluggish. If she was fully awake and up to arguing with some stupid kid, she probably would’ve come up with something much wittier, and she probably wouldn’t have gotten the vague response that she got. ‘YOU’RE RIGHT. IT’S NOT FUNNY.’ The first one rolled onscreen, quickly followed by another that read ‘DEAD SERIOUS’ She was about to type up a response, something like ‘Does your mom know you’re doing this?’ or something to make fun of his age, since there wasn’t much else she could think of, when Noah’s name popped up onscreen. Without hesitation, she slide her finger across the screen, successfully answering the call, and bringing it up to her ear.

“Hey, did you just send me some creepy texts?” She asked, giving him no time to tell her whatever he wanted to say, which was rude, but she wanted to know if he was just being a jackass. Which she knew very well he would do, probably not to her, but for his podcast, he would go to extreme lengths that even she didn’t know the extent of.

“I wouldn’t put it past a creepy guy like me, but, no.” Noah admitted, as Audrey began walking around, collecting trash that people had decided to just leave atop the display cases, instead of using the trash can that was only three paces away. “What were they?” Noah asked curiously, but Audrey didn’t want to worry him, so she just shrugged, only to remember that he couldn’t actually see her. She pinned her phone between her ear and her shoulder so she could continue talking even though her hands were full.

“Some sleazoid texted me, he was, trying to scare me.” She told him, perfectly aware that she hadn’t actually answered his question at all, but Noah seemed satisfied, because he didn’t press the matter any further, which was a huge relief to her. She threw the garbage she was holding into the can, and grabbed her phone with her hand again, watching people file slowly out of the theater. She knew that she should be excited, but, she had a feeling something would happen to make her feel guilty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jake picked up his phone, since it was ringing with notifications nonstop, and saw multiple text from people he hadn’t talked to since his ‘Jackass Jock’ year, as he likes to call it. A lot of them were ‘Have you seen it’s or ‘Dude she destroyed him’s. Only one of them really caught his attention, it said ‘The lezbeast strikes again!’ it was from a guy named George that was a complete asshole as he remembered. But 'Lezbeast' was what he called Audrey during his ‘Jackass Jock’ year, so, he couldn’t help but wonder what Audrey did to grab this dicks attention. Pasted under the text, was a bright blue, underlined link, that he was almost scared to tap. They hadn’t been friends before Piper, but, as much as she acted annoyed at his presence, she was his sarcastic soulmate.

“Hey, Brooke.” He called as he strode over to where she stood in the kitchen, she was piping the words ‘Welcome Home Emma!’ onto the cake in bright red icing that stood out against the plain white icing that covered the rest of the cake. Brooke peered up at him for a second, looking unamused as she focused on making the curve of an ‘O’ as perfect as she could get it. “Take a look at this.” He said, and clicked on the link, it brought him to a video, that was apparently a live stream at one point. Brooke set the icing bag down next to the unfinished cake, and leaned her head, shock filled her face as she saw Audrey in the thumbnail, looking distraught. Brooke reached over, pressing the ‘play’ button, and letting it buffer for a moment, before watching the video on-screen intently.

_A hand from someone off-screen showed to camera the keys to the front door of the theater, displaying that everything had gone according to plan. The hand disappeared off-screen, and the cameraman peeked around curtain, with a fake knife held tightly in their right hand. The camera came around the curtain, and There was Audrey, standing in the middle of the theater, with her hand above her eyes, and peering into the projector room. She turned and said something inaudible to her left, just as the cameraman came out from behind the curtain_

“What is this?” Brooke asked rhetorically, and grabbed the phone from him so that she could get a better look. Jake gave her his best bitch face, even though she wasn’t paying any attention to him, but didn’t take the phone back. She kept her eyes glued to the screen, watching as her friend ran as fast as she could away from her the cameraman, knocking down some boxes in an attempt to slow him down.

_Audrey ripped the fire extinguisher off the wall, and swiveled on him, spraying at him directly in the face, and successfully distracting him, even if was only for a few seconds. She ran into the front looking around frantically in search of anything that she could fight against him with, her eyes eventually settled on an icepick that was displayed in a glass case. Before the camera even knew what was happening, Audrey slammed the butt of the fire extinguisher into the glass, shattering it, and grabbed the ice pick from the rubble. She whipped back around, and without thinking about what she was doing, stabbed him in the abdomen._

“Holy shit!” Jake said, laughing through it, as the knot in his chest loosened and the video cut out. Brooke elbowed him in the ribs, making him rub where she hit, her bony elbows hurt a lot more than she knew. He looked down at his phone scrolling through the comments, and laughing, “Dude, Audrey just broken the internet again.” He boasted, much happier than before, now that he figured out that Audrey wasn’t the victim this time, well she was supposed to be, but she kicked ass instead. He was actually quite proud of the girl that had become one of his closest friends, behind Brooke of course. He shoved his into his back pocket and looked back up at Brooke, with a large smile on his face

“And not a word to Emma!” Brooke demanded, putting the finishing touches on the ‘A’ at the end of ‘Emma’ on the cake. Brooke set down the icing again and picked up bowl to put out on Kieran’s coffee table. She motioned for Jake to do the same, and he quickly obliged, following close behind her. “It’s her first night back, we don’t want to freak her out into another melt down!” Brooke added quickly, giving him her best ‘if you scare my best friend you’ll regret it’ face.

“She probably already saw it! I mean, my phone’s been blowing up for like an hour.” Jake argued, trying to playfully defend himself without pissing her off. He set the bowl onto the table, flashing Brooke one of his cocky grins as she turned and left to go into the kitchen. He was about to follow her when he heard the front door open, he turned and saw Noah walking through it, followed by a very tense Audrey.

“Hey! I’ve got our internet hero!” Noah cheered, although Audrey didn’t seem to share his level of excitement, she just tailed behind him, lugging a six pack of beer in her left hand. She was obviously upset, and rightly so, and he didn’t doubt that Noah was trying to cheer her up by acting more happy about it than he actually was, even if he was kinda happy.

“That was awesome, beeotch.” Jake said walking up to her with a large grin on his charming face. “Up top!” He added happily, putting his hand in the air for her to high five, but she just kept her hand on the back of her neck. She looked relatively annoyed with him, which confirmed his suspicions that Noah had, in fact, tried to cheer her up on the way here.

“Yeah, get this all out of your system now, their is no post gaming when Emma gets back.” She said, her voice stern as she gestured to him, but that’s not what concerned him. When she had moved her hand away from her neck, the sleeve of her leather jacket rode up on her arm slightly, and exposed her wrist the tiniest bit. Jake wouldn’t sworn that he had seen something on her wrist, he wasn’t sure, but he had a bad feeling that he knew what it was. Before he could say anything to her, she walked off into the kitchen to drop off the beers. He would have to talk to her later, and he promised himself that he would.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jake pulled open the back door of Kieran’s house, holding three empty beers in one hand, Brooke had sent him out to recycle them while she and Emma caught up in the living room. He shut the door behind him, and when he turned around, there was Audrey, sitting on the edge of the porch, with her legs dangling off the edge, and a beer in her right hand. She turned around when she heard the door open, checking to see who had come out, Jake just smiled at her and lifted up the beers to signify what he was doing. Without saying anything, she turned back towards the woods that sat next to Kieran’s house, and took a long swig of her beer. Sighing, Jake walked over and sat next to her, throwing his legs off the edge as well, and setting the empty beers next to him.

“Why aren’t ya in there with everyone else?” He asked, it was innocent question, but for some reason he felt like he was being invasive. He did want to figure out what that it was that he saw on her wrist, and he wanted to be wrong, he wanted to be so, so wrong. Audrey took another quick sip of her beer, and shrugged, but other than that, she didn’t respond. Jake licked his lips, not sure how to bring up what he wanted to know. “That thing at the theater, did freak you out much?” He asked eventually, trying to be discreet, but also figure out as quickly as possible.

“Mostly just pissed me off.” She said bluntly, sipping her beer and turning towards him with a strange look on her face. “Why’re you trying to be my therapist?” she asked, with one eyebrow raised at him. He meet her gaze with a soft one of his own, trying to relay his message through his eyes, but he didn’t to understand, so he was going to have to just do this quickly, so she didn’t have a chance to react before it was too late.

“It’s just…” Jake bit his lip, she was not going to be happy with what he was about to do, but he wanted to help her if something was wrong and this was the only way he would find out. Quickly, he grabbed the hand that didn’t have a beer in it, and yanked the sleeve of her jacket upwards, exposing the scars that covered her arms. Jake couldn’t stop himself from gasping, not only had his fears been confirmed, but it was so much worse than he thought, and none of them even looked that old, yet there were so many of them. So, so many of them. He wanted to vomit at sight, not because of how it looked, but because of the thought of her doing that to herself. “Holy shit.” He breathed, staring dumbfounded at her arm, meanwhile she was frozen in terror. Once she composed herself, she ripped her arm out of his grasp and elbowed him directly in the nose. She jumped quickly to her feet, accidentlally dropping her beer in the process, she pulled her sleeve back down and started breathing heavily, terrified of what Jake would do with this new information.

“Audrey…” He started, not really sure what to say, he stood up, reaching out to her, but she only took another defensive step away. “Audrey, what did you do to yourself?” he asked, his voice was quiet and a tiny bit shaky. He was approaching her like she was an injured deer, that he was afraid of scaring off.

“It’s… it’s nothing!” She said, resting her hand on the wrist he had seen, feeling incredibly self-conscious about the whole thing. She gulped, knowing the he knew that she was bullshitting him. It felt impossible to meet his eyes, since she had no idea how to answer any of his questions other than just deflecting all of them. She wanted to run but she couldn’t get her legs to move, all she could do was stand rigidly, and stare. Jake sighed, and grabbed her hand, tight enough that she couldn’t just bolt, but not tight enough that it hurt her. Gently, he pulled her back over to where they’re were originally sitting, and she let him, because she wasn’t sure if she could move on her own anyway. He sat back down, gently pulling on her arm to make her make her sit down beside him.

“We survived, we survived that hell, why are you doing this to yourself?” Jake asked, his voice little above a whisper, but it was practically silent outside aside from the crickets, so he wasn’t hard to hear at all. She almost wished she couldn’t hear him, so that she wouldn’t have to answer, because she couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell him that she brought Piper hear, that she was the reason his best friend was dead, and the reason his girlfriend had almost died in that freezer.

Audrey tried weakly to pull her arm away, and to her surprise, he actually let her pull away. She pulled her knees up from the edge of the porch, and hugged them to her chest, hiding her face with her knees. She was well aware of Jake’s eyes on her, full of pity and for her, pity and worry that she felt she didn’t deserve, not from him, not from anyone. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream, but at the same time, she didn’t want to show Jake that side of her. The only person that had ever seen that fragile side of was Noah, and previously, Emma, but things changed. Jake moved his hand a gently rested it on her back, trying to be reassuring but he just ended up making her tense up even more. She smacked his hand away, making her boundaries very clear.

“Audrey, talk to me, please.” He begged, wanting so badly to help her, but knowing that it was impossible to do without her compliance. And, he knew her compliance was going to be nearly impossible to get in the first place. She shook her head as her tears won the fight within her and spilled out of her eyes, leaving a track down each side of her face. She buried her face in her knees hiding her tears from him. She felt so weak, and vulnerable, sitting there with tears she couldn’t stop, in front of a friend she had hated just a few months prior.

“Okay… okay I get it, you don’t wanna explain, I get that. But, if you ever feel the need to…” He didn’t want to say ‘cut yourself’ because that sounded so harsh and accusatory, it just didn’t sound… right. “Do this again, call me, I’ll answer anytime, night or day, and I’ll listen, or I’ll talk, or I’ll come over, whatever you need.” He explained, watching the tension in her shoulders subside slightly. It took her a moment, but eventually she nodded slowly, eliciting a small but genuine smile from Jake, who then patted her shoulder.

“Come on, I think Emma would like to see you.” Jake said pulling on her elbow slightly, making her get to her feet, even if she was a bit wobbly. He started to lead her inside, when he felt a stronger resistance against his gentle pull, he turned back and saw that she had stopped in place. He was about to say something when she met his eyes with her watery ones, and shook her head lightly.

“No, I’m kinda tired, I think I’m just gonna head home for the night,” She said, pulling her arm away from him. “Tell everyone I said, g’night.” She started to make her way off the porch, going quickly down the steps, trying to make sure that Jake wouldn’t come after her, but he did. He ran up behind her, and stepped in front of her as she tried to keep walking. “Move Jake, I’m going home, nothing’s gonna change that.” She said, trying to walk around him , but he kept blocking her.

“Noah drove you right? You’re house is a long way from here, let me drive you.” Audrey was prepared to refuse his offer, but he made a good point, if she walked, she wouldn’t be home until morning. She sighed, not really looking forward to him asking her about her scars again, but knowing that going with him was the better option.

“Whatever.” She said, gesturing for him to go to his car, she followed close behind, but when he started unlocking his door, she went to the other side, so that she could sit in the passenger seat beside him. She looked at him from the other side of the car, giving her a thumbs-up to signal that he had unlocked the car. She clambered into the car, sliding into the passenger seat, and shutting the door, but not bothering to buckle up. Jake did the same, but in a more graceful way than she had done. He stuck his arm out, pulled his door closed with a quiet ‘thunk’ sound, and looked over at her for a second.

“Anytime?” She choked out, turning to look at him as well, she was being vulnerable, and this was all new to Jake, maybe that’s why he felt he had to baby her. He gave her a confused look, wondering what exactly she was asking. “I can call you anytime I feel… like… that?” She finished, answering his unspoken question, and every part of her was hoping he would say yes, because so far, she hadn’t talked to anyone about anything, and she need to talk to someone, but she’d been too afraid to tell anyone about what she did. It was mostly because she knew how they would look at her, and then they would ask questions she just couldn’t answer, or maybe just wouldn’t.

“Anytime, Audrey, whenever you need it.” he said softly, smiling as Audrey nodded in response, turning to look at the rode as he started the engine. She really hoped he wasn’t just saying that to comfort her, because she might actually hold him to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very Jake and Audrey centric, but next chapter will have ton a of Noah and Audrey moments.
> 
> Please Review!


	3. Comfort In Odd Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos, They mean a lot! I was planning on going farther in the story in this chapter, but I started and I couldn't stop.
> 
> Please Review!

Jake pulled back into Kieran’s driveway, and pulled the keys out of the ignition, but he didn’t get out of the car right away. He needed a moment to gather his thoughts. He never imagined that Audrey would ever do that, she always seemed like the strongest person of the Lakewood six, but maybe she was just the one with the strongest mask. He ran a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath. If someone had told jake just a few months ago that he would be so worried over Audrey, he would’ve laughed in their face. But, here he was, worried sick over the girl used to torture emotionally, with the help of the ever infamous Nina, of course. And, based on how close him and Audrey were now, he sometimes wondered that, if Nina had lived, if they too could have become friends. He sincerely doubted it, but there was no way to ever know, not now.

Sighing, he popped open the car door and stepped out into the cool night air. He could still see Brooke chatting Emma’s ear off in the living room, with Kieran’s arm wrapped around Emma protectively, and Noah walking around, looking around with a confused, so at least he knew that no one, other than Audrey, had gone home yet. But, in all honesty, he was probably going to have to have drag Brooke away from Emma, kicking and screaming. She had obviously missed Emma an insane amount, since she hadn’t left her side from the second she had gotten home. He had a feeling that when he took her home that she was going to be furious at him, so with that thought in mind, he decided to put on his best shit-eating grin as he walked up to Kieran’s front door.

“Hey, the Jake has returned!” He said cheerfully as he pulled open the door and strode inside. Everyone looked up at him, and Emma flashed him a smile. Brooke just rolled her eyes at his antics, and he was pretty sure that she had no idea that he had driven away in the first place. He collapsed on one of the empty arm chairs, eyeing Noah curiously as he peered out the windows, as if he was looking for something.

“Where’d you go?” Noah asked, stepping away from the windows, taking a quick swig of the near empty beer he had in his hand, and giving Jake a sceptical look. He walked over to him, stopping to collect one of the full beers from the counter when Jake motioned awkwardly for it, and handed it to him as he got near. “And, have you seen Audrey? She’s just up and disappeared.” He added, worry very clear in his voice, because Audrey was his best friend, and he could tell when she wasn’t okay, even when she said he was. Normally he didn’t press the subject, because if she wasn’t comfortable sharing, he wasn’t going to make her, but when he did, he never did it around others.

“Oh, yeah. I drove her home.” He said nonchalantly, digging in his pockets to find the bottle opener that Audrey had accidentally taken when they left. His words caused Noah to raise an eyebrow suspiciously, because it made no sense to him that she would get Jake to drive her home, when she could very easily ask him. “I guess the kinda wanted to a nap or something after what happened at the theater.” He said, trying to ease Noah’s confusion, but he only made it worse, Audrey never showed her weakness to anyone other than him, she never even told anything to her dad, so why would she talk to him? Of all people, the guy who played a very pivotal part in making her entire life a living hell since fourth grade.

“Theater? What happened at the theater?” Emma’s said, interrupting Noah’s suspicious glaring at Jake, and making Brooke start glaring at him instead. Jake met her intense gaze, and threw up his hands defensively, and mouthed ‘I’m sorry!’ to her in an attempt to get back on her good side. They all made a silent agreement in that moment that no one would say anything more about it, they’d just brush it off like it was nothing big, although, it was harder for Jake, as he remembered the scars on her arms. Apparently, Noah didn’t get the memo, because he soon pulled out his phone and clicked to the video, skipping through it until he reached the point when the “killer” starting peeking around the curtain, and handing it to Emma. She just stared, transfixed at the screen as Audrey knocked down a stack of boxes while she was running, Brooke just started hitting him with her purse, making him shrink away. “Audrey…” Emma mumbled, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Okay that’s enough.” Brooke said, pulling the phone out of Emma’s hand as Audrey’s attacker collapsed. Emma looked shocked, and there was a bit of pity in her eyes for Audrey and Noah was just glad she wasn’t there to see it, because he knew how much she hated being pitied. Emma looked over at everyone, and they all refused to meet her eyes, she had obviously pieced together that they were planning on keeping this video a secret. Emma scoffed, standing up from the couch and stalking off into the kitchen. “Em, wait! We just didn’t want to freak you out!” Brooke explained, not wanting her best friend to be mad at her the night she got back, she jumped up, and started to follow Emma, but Kieran stopped her. He put a gentle hand on Brooke’s collar bone, making her halt, he flashed her an ‘I got this’ look, and followed Emma into the kitchen. Brooke sat back down on the couch, crossing her arms in front of her and glaring daggers at Noah, who was sending her an apologetic look.

~~~~~~~~~~   


Audrey groaned, turning over onto her back on her bed, and opening her eyes,  she was greeted by darkness, so at least she wasn’t blinded, but she was annoyed and confused as to fact that she was up so early. There was no reason for her to be up this early, nothing to do, since it was a Saturday morning, and she hadn’t set an alarm for anything, yet, she still heard an annoying ringing sound. She turned her head to her right, and saw her phone, with the screen light up, ringing with the same sound she had set for her alarm, she’d have to change that later, because it was becoming incredibly annoying. The phone kept ringing, even though she turned away from it, and covered her ears with one of her unused pillows. Finally, it rung out, and she pushed the pillow off of herself, cuddling into herself, and smiling slightly, enjoying the bliss of falling back to sleep.

Her eyes shot open as the phone began ringing again, she looked over at her clock, reading the red numbers, and getting progressively more annoyed as she read it. It was 3:46AM, who the hell wanted her attention so bad, so early in the morning? She knew it was probably Noah, who couldn’t sleep, and was calling her to rant about a horror movie or another, if that was the case, she was going to kick his scrawny ass. She rolled onto her stomach, leaving her head tilted towards the phone, giving it the most intense death glare she could muster in her groggy state. Originally, she had planned to just ignore it until whoever it was got tired of calling of calling her, but around the sixth call, she caved and reached towards it, pulling it off the nightstand. She sat up, not bothering to check who was calling, before putting it to her right ear, hoping to just tell them to piss off.

“What the hell do you want?!” She said, pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her tired eyes. Her voice was hoarse from lack of use, so it made her voice sound scratchy, but she didn’t mind, she actually hoped they would hear that in her voice, and hang up sooner. She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, whilst yawning loudly, with her mouth pointed away from the microphone so that they could still hear it, but it didn’t bombard their ears. 

“I want to know if you thought you were getting away with it.” She didn’t know whose voice she was expecting, but she was not expecting the distorted voice that Piper had used to taunt them to come through the phone. And, for a moment, she tensed up, and her left hand shot up, self-consciously tracing her scars, remembering the reason why she had put them there in the first place. But she quickly realized that Piper was dad, and it was over, so she just rolled her eyes, whoever was calling must’ve been some dumbass kid that was trying to freak her out, but why were they calling so late at night? And, how did they get her number in the first place, it wasn’t like she had told a lot of people what was. In fact, only the Lakewood six, Rachel, and her parents knew her phone number, or had known in Rachel’s case. Her eyes flicked over to the porcelain container, and stayed there as she spat out her sassy reply.

“Did you actually waste two bucks on some godforsaken voice changer app just so you could try and scare me, really?” She said in a condescending tone that got her message across very clearly. She really wasn’t in the mood for this, and her mind was replaying old memories of Rachel now, so she could already feel tears pricking up in the corners of her eyes. If she ever found out who was playing this stupid prank, she was going to promptly kick their ass, and make them regret doing this in the first place. This was probably that chick Haley from the theatre, now that she thought about it.

“You shouldn’t be so rude to me, Audrey, I could’ve called your precious little Noah instead, and told him all about how you and Piper.” The voice said, making Audrey almost drop the phone from her ear in shock. She suddenly felt as if someone had dumped cold water over head, she was wide awake, and scared shitless. What did they know about her and Piper? Did they know that she brought Piper here, and that she had told her everything there was to know about Emma? Her heart rate rose at these thoughts, and she found herself scooting slowly but surely towards the nightstand that had Rachel’s porcelain container on top. “Oh, did that scare you? This is going ot be easier than I thought.” The edited voice said, noticing her prolonged silence, and laughing in delight.

“What the hell are you talking about, dickhead?” She growled, trying to make it seem like she genuinely didn’t know what he was talking about, but was getting annoyed by his false accusations. Although, she doubted she was being even remotely convincing, and even if she was, she had a feeling that whoever this was, actually knew what they were talking about. Her Haley theory was seeming less and less likely by the second, because Haley had no idea what she was talking about when it came to Piper’s rampage.

“Oh, I think you know, all those sad letters sent to her, begging for her to be your friend, because everyone else hated you! Little did you know, she hated you too!” They taunted, and without realizing it, Audrey found herself pulling the porcelain container off the nightstand, clutching it in her left hand. She felt the tears that she had been holding back dripping steadily down her cheeks, and the hand the jar started to shake slightly. “Oh, is she thinking of adding more cuts to the collection?” This time, she really did drop what she was holding in her hand, but it wasn’t the phone, it was the porcelain container instead. Luckily, it landed on the bed, so it didn’t break apart into a million pieces, but the lid did come off flying onto another area of the bed, along with the razors, but they didn’t to in the same place. She didn’t stop to collect them, she was more worried about the fact that someone was knew about her and Piper, and they were watching her at that very moment. Just the thought of it made Audrey’s skin crawl, so she turned and looked at her window, expecting the curtain to be open, but they were drawn shut.

“Leave me the hell alone, asshole.” She said in a shaky voice, and quickly hung up the phone, and shoved it under her pillow when it began ringing again. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe, this had to be a nightmare, it certainly felt like one. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest, and she didn’t know what to do, until she moved her leg slightly, and it bumped into the bottom half of the container. She reached down, picking up the lid and the base, she put them together and placed it gently on the nightstand. She couldn’t tell anyone about this, because not only did they know about her and Piper, but they knew about the cutting as well, and she didn’t know what would be worse if they found out. Her gaze fell on the bed again, not looking at anything ni particular, just trying to put her thought in order, but her eyes did see something, a small, sharp razor, sitting atop her comforter.

She wasn’t sure if she could stop herself, she couldn’t think of anything else to do to deal with the guilt and fear that was now bubbling in her chest. A shaky hand reached towards it slowly, and she felt some deja vu, this was how it was most of the time, she would cut in the cover of night, when her dad was either asleep or spending the night at Wendy’s house. Se would cut most nights, because all of her friends, all of the people she hung out with, were the people she had hurt so dearly. 

So, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and silent sobs racking through her body, she pressed the blade into her arm, and let the warm blood creep down her arm.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jake pulled his shirt over his head, it was difficult to do since he was hadn’t completely dry yet, and it kept sticking to him. He slicked his hair back, and it stayed in position solely because he hadn’t bothered to even try and dry his hair. Below him, his phone started to ringing with that bland default ringtone that he hadn’t bothered to change. He always made a mental note to turn it into something cool that he could jam out to anytime the phone rang, but he had always set it aside.  Maybe it would make him more pumped up to talk to whoever was calling, and he certainly needed it now, since he wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone. He leaned down, picking up his phone, fully prepared to deny the call and run after Brooke before it got anymore ugly between them, but when he saw who was calling, his heart stopped. He looked at the doorway that Brooke had stormed out, and back at the phone in his hand, he knew what he was going to choose, what he  _ had  _ to choose. Quickly, he answered the phone call and took another long look at where Brooke had exited, he was going to try and make this quick, as selfish as that was.

“Audrey? I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting you to call so soon, is something wrong?” he asked, hoping with every fiber in his being that she wasn’t doing anything to herself, and part of the reason was because he wanted to end the call. He hated that part of himself, it was those exact words that ran his life when he was jackass, and he was determined to not let them control him anymore. But, when it came to Brooke, he sometimes reverted into that horrible version of himself,  at maybe that was why he pissed her off so easily. 

“J-jake?” She stuttered, obviously hearing the tiniest bit of annoyance that she must’ve heard in his voice. But, that very annoyance dissipated when her heard  _ her  _ voice, it was shaky, and she had obviously been crying, or had at least been on the verge of tears for some time. “I know y-you said to call you, but I… I dunno I just…” Her sentence trailed off into muffled sobs, and he imagined that she had covered her mouth with her free hand in an attempt to keep him from hearing her weakness, though it was futile. At her words, Jake’s heart started beating rapidly, and he starting silently begging that she hadn’t done it again, he didn’t know how he was begging to, maybe to her, maybe to some higher power.

“Audrey,” He started, keeping his voice calm and level so he didn’t freak her out more than she already was, “What happened… did you… did you cut yourself?” the words felt bitter in his throat, but he didn’t want her dodging question, because he knew she would try, it was just her personality. He could hear her breathing heavily into phone, but as he listened, he heard her slow her rapid breathing, which he was incredibly happy about, because he didn’t want her to start hyperventilating.

“I’m sorry.” She sobbed, not directly answering his question, but it was good enough, he could figure out what she meant by that, she had done it again. But, buried in all the sudden sadness, pity, and worry, there was a tiny bit of happiness, because, even if it was after, she had still called him, she still trusted him with this. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, he didn’t know what caused her sudden lapse into this, she had seemed okay when he dropped her off, she seemed  _ exhausted _ , but okay. Although, he wasn’t sure  _ exactly  _ what she was thinking, she might’ve been upset that Jake found out, but she had called him, so that couldn’t be true. Right?

“Don’t be, I’m coming over.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Audrey swayed slowly on her bed, watching blood drip off her arm and onto the towel she was using to protect her bed. She knew that she probably should’ve gotten something to clean up her arm with, but she just felt weak, like all the strength had been sapped out of her body. Her tears had stopped, but she hadn’t bothered to reach up and wipe away the tear tracks on her pale face. She must’ve looked like a zombie, sitting cross-legged on her bed, sway slightly, with bags under her eyes, and a dead look in her eyes. That’s probably why Jake had frozen in place when he had seen her, after quietly pushed the door to her room open, and promptly closing it before actually taking a look at her. She didn’t meet his horrified eyes, she just rubbed at her nose and sniffled, grabbing the blood dotted towel from the bed, unfolding it, and wrapping it around the arm that she cut.

“Sorry.” she mumbled, regretting calling him in the first place, because having him here made her feel twenty times worse than before, when she had actually done the cutting. She knew that she didn’t deserve his pity, and she knew that if he knew why she had started doing this in the first place, he would have pity on her, he would hate her. He’d probably tell everyone, and she’d be alone again, everyone would leave her, He would, Brooke would, Kieran would, Emma would… again, and worst of all, she had a horrible feeling that Noah would leave her too.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.” Jake said, snapping out of his trance and dashing towards Audrey as she started to climb off her double bed. He just managed to get to her in time to push her back down as she rose off the bed, she didn’t fight him, and she doubted she could, even if she wanted to. She wanted to rewind, she wanted to go back to before she had called him, and stop herself, because she felt ashamed of herself, of what she’d done. He couldn’t help her, he  _ shouldn’t _ help her, in that moment she just wanted him to leave, to let her sit, alone in her pit of pain, because she deserved it. Her thoughts kept replaying three words, ‘You’re a monster’. She couldn’t tell Jake this, because he would argue that she wasn’t a monster, she was a survivor, she did nothing wrong, but she knew that that wasn’t true. He knew nothing. 

“Audrey, come ‘ere.” He whispered. Trying to coax her into a hug as he climbed onto the bed with her. She let him pull her into a hug, but he didn’t hug back, she just stared blankly at his chest, watching it rise and fall, and trying to match her breaths with his. He rested his chin on her head, squashing her bed-head. He rocked her slightly, trying to comfort her, he had never done this before, so he had no idea what to do, all he knew what that he wanted to help her.

“I’m sorry, god I’m so sorry.” She said, watching as tears clouded her vision, then poured over the edge of her face. This time, she knew exactly what she was sorry for, she was sorry for what she had done, how much she had hurt everyone in this small town. Even if they didn’t lose anyone, they were probably scared shitless. He pulled her closer into him, and she felt her tears get absorbed by the fabric of shirt. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry Jake, I never wanted any of this.” She sobbed, and just kept repeating the same words, ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again, but they never lost their meaning, not to her at least. He just shushed her, and tried not to break out in tear himself, because he wanted to cry, for her, and for how sad her whole predicament was.

  
That was the last time she ever saw Jake alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oOPS. 
> 
> Please Review!


	4. The Road To Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for coming back! I have so many ideas for this story, and I can't wait to write it. So, as always, thank you if you left Kudos, and a double thank you to everyone who commented on this story!
> 
> Please Review!

‘Hello?!?!?’ Audrey typed into the message box and hit send, trying to get an answer from a very unresponsive Jake. He had been radio silent for two days, no one could get ahold of him, not even Brooke, not that she was trying that hard. Audrey was, she had sent a total of 109 messages to Jake, and he hadn’t even read any of them. She had acted like she wasn’t that worried, and she had told no one that she had been the last to see him, she just let them think that Brooke was the last one to see him at the pool. It was probably just making things harder, but if they knew that Jake stopped by her house that late at night, they’d get suspicious.

“Uh, earth to Audrey.” Noah said, and Audrey snapped out of her thoughts to see Noah waving his hand in front of her face, obviously trying to get her attention. She looked up, acknowledging his presence with a small, forced smile, but she only got a troubled frown in return. He let his hand drop by his side, and he sat down in the chair beside her, in the back of History classroom. “You okay? You seem.. Off.” Noah said, trying to read her expression, and Audrey just sighed, she should’ve known Noah would notice something, they’ve been friends too long for him not to.

“Just… lost in thought I guess.” She said, and it wasn’t a lie, she just wasn’t telling him exactly  _ what _ she was thinking about at that time. Noah didn’t seem satisfied, he just kept staring at her with a frown on his usually cheerful face. She probably looked really bad when he came in, now that she thought about it, she was sitting alone, at the back of an empty History classroom, when school had ended over twenty minutes ago. 

“Is this about what happened at the theater yesterday? Jake said you were upset really upset about it.” Noah didn’t realize exactly how much his sentence pissed off Audrey, not at him, but at Jake. She had thought that he wouldn’t tell anyone about that, but maybe he didn’t know how upset she was. He had promised her on the ride to her house from Kieran’s that he wouldn’t tell anyone, especially Noah. 

“Yeah, I guess it freaked me a little.” She admitted, getting a small smile from Noah for the first time in this entire exchange, she didn’t know why he was smiling, but she assumed that it was because she had actually been relatively honest about how she was feeling for once. “But I kicked ass.” She added, getting a laugh from Noah this time, and, oddly enough, she found herself laughing along with him.

“I’ll second that.” He said, and Audrey smiled, genuinely this time, Noah always knew how to do that, make her smile when she felt like absolute shit. In that moment, she was tempted to tell him everything, because he could make her feel better, and he wouldn’t judge her for what she had done… right? “Do you want a ride home?” He offered, and she found herself nodding, since she had gotten a ride from him this morning as well, so she would have to go with him, or she would have to walk home, and it wasn’t exactly close. She stood up, grabbing her bag off the floor as she did, Noah flashed her one more concerned look, before grabbing his stuff and standing up too.

“Did you see Jake in any of your classes?” She asked out of the blue they exited the classroom into a deserted hallway, she figured that it couldn’t hurt to ask, after all, she could just say she was asking for Brooke. She pulled the strap of her bag over her head and rested it on her shoulder, then turned her head back to Noah, who was still mentally checking each classroom for the presence of ‘The Jake’.

“Not in any of mine.” He said, shaking his head. Audrey wasn’t disappointed, she had been expecting that, she hadn’t seen him either, and they had most of the same classes, but where he had Psych, she had Filmography. Not that she was to interested in it anymore, it just reminded her of what she did with Piper, and make her want to cut out of guilt. “Hey, hey, Audrey! Are you sure you’re okay? That’s the second time you’ve zoned out on me in the last ten minutes.” Audrey sighed, because she knew the answer, no, no she was not okay, she had done all of this to them and the guilt was to much her to bear.

“Yeah, I just have a lot on my mind today.” She said instead, but this time, Noah didn’t believe it, and she could see it in his face, so she decided to change the topic as quickly as she could, but there was something she need to talk to him about, so maybe she could pin her weird behavior on that. “This happened, But it’s probably just that girl from the theater, Haley, or whatever.” She said, sighing and pulling out her phone, she unlocked it quickly before opening up the texts from the infamous ‘Unknown’ and handing it to Noah. His brow furrowed as he scrolled through the text messages about ‘Consequences’.

“We should go to the police.” He said matter-of-factly and started to jog down the hallway, but she put her hand on his shoulder, successfully stopping him in his tracks. She really didn’t want to go the police, it would all feel so real then, and she probably have a hard time convincing herself that this was just Haley’s antics, since her conviction was already shaky to begin with. “Audrey, this is serious, let me go.” He said sternly, but that never worked on her, she knew he wouldn’t actually do anything to her, so she was even more ballsy than usual around him.

“It’s just a prank, and I only told you because you wanted to know what was wrong, don’t blow this out of proportion, Noah.” She pleaded, keeping a tight, and maybe a little painful, grip on his shoulder so that he wouldn’t just bolt on her and go to the police anyway. His expression softened at the tone of her voice, and he turned back around to face her, confused as to why she looked so panicked. 

“Okay I’ll let it go.” He said, handing Audrey back her phone, which she quickly pocketed, and looked back up at Noah gratefully. He still looked worried, and it made her feel guilty, since all he wanted to do was help, and she was just rejecting him at every turn. But she was also slightly confused, it wasn’t like him to just drop things like this so quickly. “Only if you promise that you’ll tell me if you get anymore texts.”  _ Ah, there it is _ she thought, and she knew it would be useless to fight against him when he was this worried, so she just nodded, and he patted her on the back awkwardly, flashing her a wide, toothy smile, and continuing down the hallway.

“Oh, by the way, I have something to tell you.” Noah chirped, and Audrey looked at him with an eyebrow raised, but also a small smile on her face, grateful that he changed the subject. Noah gave a strange look and started walking with a tiny skip in in step. “We have another lead on Piper’s accomplice!” He said, and luckily he was looking forward, and couldn’t see Audrey’s face completely drop, but by the time he turned around to look at her, she had fake interest on her face to cover up the fear.

“Show me.” She said, and almost cringed at how demanding her voice sounded, although Noah didn’t seem to notice, in fact, he seemed elated. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, clicking through something that she couldn’t see, then pointed the screen towards her. She noticed that it was in the comment section of his podcast, but he hand was too shaky for her to read the tiny text, so she gently grabbed onto his hand to steady it, and read a comment by ‘EddieKruger’ saying that he knew who Pipers accomplice was. “He’s probably just bullshitting you.” She said, amazed that someone as smart as Noah would fall for something so obvious.

“Actually, no, Piper stayed at a Motel called ‘Crescent Palms’ sometimes while she was here, he’s a Clerk there!” He cheered, whilst Audrey’s heart dropped in her chest, she remember going to the Crescent Palms with Piper, a lot, since that’s where they usually met up. She knew that she had to stop him from going, or stop that clerk from spilling his guts. “I have an interview scheduled with him for later today, wanna come and film it?” He asked, and Audrey had to accept, it was the only way she could stop him from figuring out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Noah just didn’t know when to give up, even now, as he raised his hand up for her to fist-bump, not knowing that he was slowly torturing her. Of course, she couldn’t say anything, because if she did, he might find out that she brought Piper here. She couldn’t even tell him about the son of bitch that had been calling and texting her, telling him was not an option anymore, and honestly, she had thought about actually telling him if she got anymore texts, but now, now it was out of the question. This person  _ knew, _ they knew  _ everything _ , they knew everything about her and Piper, hell, they had copies of all the letters she had written to her. If she told about the new texts she received now, It would lead to him asking the questions that she had been dreading since that night at the dock. 

“Wouldn’t miss it.” She said, bumping her fist against his, and suppressing a cringe due to the fact she could hear how uneasy she was in her own voice, so much that she wondered how didn’t suspect anything, and just keep smiling that goofy contagious smile of his. But even with him looking like a dork, she couldn’t bring herself to smile, she didn’t know what exactly was in that storage unit, but she was completely sure that she didn’t want him to find out what it was.

“Hey, wanna go grab some food? We could go to the grindhouse or something.” He suggested, making it clear that he was he hungry, and probably thirsty too, who wouldn’t be after interviewing someone for half an hour without a drink. Audrey thought about it, she didn’t want to seem suspicious, but at the same time, she wanted to get to that storage as soon as she could, since she had no idea what could be in there, it might be difficult to get rid of.

“Nah dude.” She said, and a look of confusion crossed his face, he must’ve been expecting her to accept, after all, she had no reason to refuse, other than the unit, which he could never know she was going to before him. “I gotta jet, my dad wants me to clean up the house before Wendy comes over, and he’s to lazy to get off his ass and do it himself.” She spat, since he dad had actually asked her to do that earlier, she responded by making the house a bigger mess than it had already been, but leaving her room pristine, so it would seem like her dad was a slob

“Okay well, see you later.” Noah said, pulling her into a quick hug, and then heading off towards his car, which was parked outside the entrance of the Motel. She watched him jump into his car, and waved to him one last time as he reversed his car, then drove off into the darkness of the night. She waited until she couldn’t see his car, even faintly, before trudging her way towards her own, she really didn’t want him to see her not going home like she said she was. If he did, he would start untangling her string of lies, and she couldn’t have that, that couldn’t happen, of all people, she couldn’t lose  _ him _ . 

She walked slowly to her car, careful to not let herself walk past any windows and get seen by Eddie, because he would probably call the cops. When she reached her car, she didn’t go start to the driver's seat, instead, she went around back, and popped the trunk open. It was a mess back there, towels, old grocery bags, some books, and various tools that she would trouble explaining. She dug through the mess until she found what she was looking for, bolt cutters, they were only in here because she had rescued some poor dog that chain to an abandoned building and just left there. She pulled it out, mentally noted to clean out the trunk, and shut the trunk with a ‘clunk.’.

~~~~~~~~~

Audrey felt like she couldn’t move, like she couldn’t breathe as she stared at the lifeless body of a person she had grown to care deeply for. She ended up dropping her flashlight, which keep shining on him even after it hit the ground, due to it landing in a very unfortunate position, one that highlighted the gaping whole in his body. Her hand was clapped over her mouth, partly out of shock, and partly because she felt like she was gonna vomit. She was startled back to his senses by her phone ringing loudly, she quickly answered it so that no one would hear it ring, and didn’t bother checking the caller ID, she knew who it was.

“How- how could you do this to Jake?!” She asked, feeling salty tears form in her eyes, but she didn’t let them spill over, not since she knew that asshole was watching her every move. Her breathing was erratic, and she was trying to steady it to keep from hyperventilating, knowing it would be bad if someone came over and saw that she was having a panic attack next to dead body. It was bad enough that she had broken in.

“What are you gonna do? Call the police? Oh wait, you can’t” They spat through the phone, and Audrey would’ve made some creative retort, but she was emotionally  _ destroyed.  _ The one person she could confide in about what she was doing, was now dead, and it was entirely her fault. And if everyone ever found out, they would all believe it as well, she may have well murdered Jake. “Oh, or… are you going to have an appointment with that pretty razor again? Do you think you’ll finally actually kill yourself, huh, killer?” 

“Is that what this is about, you found out that Jake could help me, so you just killed him?” She asked through gritted teeth, and crouched down by his body, closing his eyes so she didn’t have to look at them any longer. That’s when she noticed the small pieces of paper pinned to his chest, each containing their own word. When she put it all together ‘Cut, just like your arms, Audrey’ that made her subconsciously touch the small part of her wrist that was exposed, and tracing along the horizontal lines that felt all too familiar.

“Maybe, Killer. I guess you’ll just have to find out. Oh, and you should get out of there soon, It’d be a shame if Noah found out so early in our little game.” The killer taunted, laughing maliciously, and ending the phone call before she had time to respond to the snide comment. She shoved her phone in her back pocket, picked up up her fallen flashlight, and taking a deep, yet shaky breath. Slowly, she reached towards him, and took even one off, pin by pin, trying to choke back tears. She was going to need to come up with some bullshit excuse as to why she was going to be so out of it tomorrow, at least she would have time to think up something.

~~~~~~~~~~~

She didn’t want to do this, but it would make her feel better, or at least feel like she was evening out the score. When they had taunted her about the cutting, she had promised to herself that she wouldn’t to do, but her she was, holding a razor over the blue veins of her wrist, with tears streaming down her face. Everything had just hit her so hard when she got back, Jake’s death just felt so surreal at the storage unit, but as she was disposing of the paper and the pins, the fact that she would never be able to laugh at his stupid, arrogant jokes again.

The worst part was, she would have to sit around and listen to Brooke worry over Jake, knowing that he his corpse was somewhere, sitting in the clutches of the asshole that had slaughtered him. To make matters even worse, Noah was going to discover his body tomorrow, when he opened up the unit, maybe she could delay that for as long as possible. But she doubted it, because Noah was a very persistent person, and he wouldn’t let anything get the way of him uncovering another secret. Sometimes, she wished he wouldn’t, because slowly, he was coming closer to finding out one of  _ her _ secrets, maybe both.

Her eyes focused back on the razor that was placed on her wrist, right above her veins. She hadn’t cut around the wrist as often as the rest of her arms, but when things got bad, like now, she found herself cutting deep into her already heavily scarred arm. For a moment, she wondered how if this was how Rachel felt when she did it, she didn’t want  _ this  _ to be her one connection to Rachel. But sadly, if she was willing to admit it, it was, since she barely ever used her camera anymore. She felt tears run down her cheeks as she recalled the last time she had found a new cut on Rachel’s arm.

_ “Sh, It’s okay, Rachel, I’m here, with you, I’m never gonna leave, I promise you, I’ll never leave you. I’ll never want to.” She whispered into her ear, while gently stroking her long blonde hair. Audrey was sitting on their spot on the balcony, with Rachel’s head in her lap, and Rachel was crying, she was quiet at times, but other times she let out loud sobs and clung tightly to Audrey. She was facing away from her, clutching her wrists to her chest, while Audrey was holding her tightly in her arms, trying to calm her. _

_ “I-I’m s-sorry.” Rachel choked out, trying to make sure that Audrey didn’t hate her, and Audrey wasn’t shocked at her words, she had said them almost every time, but it still hurt to know that Rachel thought she had to apologize. Audrey leaned down a little, planting a long, lingering kiss on Rachel’s shaky head, and raking her fingers through her hair gently. _

_ “No, no, shh, baby, you have nothing to be sorry for.” Audrey muttered, and starting rocking Rachel slowly to the sound of crickets chirping in the otherwise silent night. Rachel tried to respond, but all that came out of her mouth was another sob, and she turned so that her face was pressed into Audrey’s thigh, so that her tears were soaked up into the abrasive cloth of her dark jeans. _

That wasn’t was this was, Rachel hadn’t deserved it, Rachel was an innocent soul who had been treated like she was garbage for being different. Audrey, on the other hand, Audrey knew that she deserved this, all of this, she had gotten so many people killed, and caused everyone else so much pain. She was the reason Emma now had PTSD, and that doesn’t just go away, she’s stuck with that forever. It was her fault that Kieran had lost his dad, not long after he had lost his mom and his step-dad. Then there was Noah, poor, sweet, lovable Noah, who hadn’t done anything wrong his entire life. He had never hurt her, quite the opposite actually, he was constantly there  for her, when Emma left, when her mom got sick, when Rachel died, whenever Nina outed her. And she and she had hurt him, she had gotten her girlfriend killed, and then she had the audacity to comfort him after Riley’s passing, if only she’d known.

With newfound guilt running through her system, she dug the blade into her arm yet again.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like this? I really wanted to add the part with Rachel to show how much she was hurting, physically and emotionally. See you all next time... hopefully!
> 
> Please Review!


	5. The Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took way too long to make, but here it is. Thank you to everyone who commented! You all say so many nice things that make me so, so happy. And thank you if you left Kudos! You're great!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Scream (And yes, I keep forgetting to put this)
> 
> Please Review!

If there was any time that it was appropriate to panic, it was now.

The shots. They had been drugged, by ‘Jake’.  _ Of fucking course  _ she thought angrily, pacing around the only empty room she could find, the tiny walk-in closet on the first floor of Emma’s house. She could still hear some people retching, but it had mostly subsided at this point, but the house still smelled like vomit, especially in the bathroom and outside in the yard. Luckily, Audrey found it easy to ignore, because her brain felt slow, foggy, and basically backed up, that didn’t stop her from trying to figure out who drugged the tequila. Her gut was on Stavo, he knew too much about this drug, ayahuasca, then there was the his drawings, that were so  _ creepy _ . She would love to call him out on them, but them he would know that she went through his tablet, and she really doubted that conversation would end well.

“Audrey? Audrey? Hey, has anyone seen Audrey?” A voice asked from somewhere outside the closet she was holed up in, she knew that voice, it was Noah, but she couldn’t say anything, she had to stay hidden, stay alone. Stavo had said that everyone would start hallucinating, and this closet was her safe haven, as long as she didn’t leave, she wouldn’t accidently say anything about anything. She had a horrible feeling that if she went out there, she would let it slip that she was the accomplice that Noah was searching so desperately for, or the fact that she was cutting. “Audrey? I gotta ask you somethi-” His speech was cut off by a loud crash making Audrey snap out of her stupor.

“Noah?” She muttered under her breath, putting her hand on the lock by the doorknob, but hesitating, Noah was probably fine, but she couldn’t get the thought out of her head that the killer was there. So, she sucked it up, unlocked the door, and twisted the handle so that the door would open. She pulled it open, seeing an ominously empty living room, this room had been packed when she went in, so where did everyone go? There was no trace of, well the living room wasn’t  _ pristine, _ it was littered with cups, but it there was nothing that could tell her where anyone went, even all the previously open doors had been closed. “Noah? Where’d you go?” She called as she began to walk around the room

“Noah?!” She called again, heading towards one of the doors, she reached towards it, trying to turn the handle, but it didn’t budge.  _ Locked? But this door leads to the kitchen… why is it locked?  _ She thought. Unless, the killer was here, and they had locked her in this room so she couldn’t stop him from killing all of the people she cared about. In panic, she bolted running across the room towards the door on the opposite side that lead to a hallway, along the way, she tripped, falling flat on her face. She groaned, pushing herself off the floor slowly, and turning to see exactly what had tripped her.

“Jake!” There was Jake's body, laying on the floor, with a giant gash through her torso, letting his guts and blood spill onto the floor. Audrey clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming, and shoved herself onto her now wobbly feet. Her breathing had become erratic, she knew she needed to get out of there, and get someone, she could  _ finally _ tell someone, tell Brooke. She started to shuffle backwards, letting her hand fall from her mouth, to grab vase from an end table to use as a weapon, when she bumped into something else. “Brooke!” he muttered, completely frozen out of fear and grief.

“No, no, no, I have to get out of here.” She said to herself, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of Brooke’s mangled form. Her eyes had been crudely removed from her skull, blood was pouring out of a gaping knife wound in her chest, and there was a note on her that said ‘Now she can never see what you did, I helped you, didn’t I, Killer?’ She wanted to vomit, and not because of the ayahuasca this time. She bolted away, kicking red solo cups around as she did so, she ran to another door, she was shocked to find that it was actually unlocked. She as flooded with joyus relief, but as she pushed it open, she discovered that it was just the closet from earlier, she wanted to punch a wall at this point, but she also want to…. She touched her wrists, not wanting to admit that she wanted to cut, yet again. She hung her head slightly, feeling defeated, but as she did so, she saw another body. “E-emma?” She stuttered, looking into the lifeless eyes of her former best friend. She had a bullet wound in her chest, and one in head as well.  _ Just like Piper _ Audrey thought, dropping the vase and stumbling backwards again, but running into something, or someone, this time.

“Audrey?” The voice was monotone, and definitely not distorted like the killer’s, but she whipped around all the same, elbowing whoever was behind her in the stomach as she did so. She came face to face with the man behind the voice, Stavo. He was hunched over slightly, clutching his stomach, and giving her an intrigued yet pissed look. At first, she felt like apologizing, but she didn’t really mean it, since if he was the only one other than her here…. But wait, that wasn’t true, everyone was hear, party guests were milling about in the room, muttering to themselves, or just passed out of the couch. She whipped back, looking in the closet, and there was no Emma, upon further inspection of the room, no Jake or Brooke either. “What’d you see?” Stavo asked, straightening his back, and raising an eyebrow at her since she was still breathing extremely heavily. Illusions, it was just an illusion, Brooke and Emma weren’t dead

“Nothing. Nothing.” She muttered, quickly and quietly. Stavo obviously didn’t believe her, and she didn’t blame him, since she was making it very clear that she had seen  _ something _ . She just stumbled away from him, and got absorbed by the crowd of people. She pushed her way out of the room, a through the door, that was open this time around. She knew it was an illusion, but she had to check, with everything that was going on, she had to be sure. She looked around desperately, searching for any sign of Brooke or Emma, but she saw none, until her eyes settled on Zoe. She was leaning against a couch, looking completely dazed, and Audrey wasn’t sure she would get a response if she even asked, but she did anyway. “Hey, have you seen Emma?”

“I think she’s upstairs.” Zoe replied, starting to smile slightly with her perfect teeth. She giggled a bit, causing her hair to fall onto her shoulders, and her chest to bounce slightly, and Audrey knew she should have more patience, since the girl was under the influence as well, but she wanted to make sure they were okay.

~~~~~~~

Noah stumbled down the long hallway, feeling woozy and disconcerted. The ayahuasca had made feel like he had just had five jager bombs, basically, it made him feel more drunk than he had ever been before in his entire life. He wanted to vomit and pass out at the same time, but he couldn’t do either, so she just stumbled in his drunken stupor through Emma’s house, trying not to break anything. He eventually had stumbled into the hallway that led to the foyer, and spotted a familiar face at the end of it, Audrey.

She looked frightened, confused, and strangely enough, a little bit guilty.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How was Rachel there? This had to be another Hallucination, but she didn’t want it to be, she wanted to believe that Rachel was there, standing in front of her, even if she had a noose wrapped very loosely around her neck. Audrey stared at her for a moment full of disbelief and some sorrow, because she knew she could never truly have the beautiful girl who stood in front of her know.

“Shh, don’t be afraid, I won’t tell anyone what you did to yourself, and to the others.” Rachel said, and placed her hands on the sides of Audrey’s neck, pulling her in for a long, sweet kiss. Audrey raised her arms, wanting to wrap her arms around Rachel, and hold her so tightly that she could never slip away again. But she hesitated, because, even in this moment, she knew she didn’t deserve Rachel, she was the reason she has gotten killed in the first place. She had to pull away, she couldn’t let herself indulge in people as sweet as Rachel. Rachel deserved someone with a heart as pure as her own, not Audrey, not the monster that had brought Piper to Lakewood just so she could have a friend, not someone so  _ selfish _ . 

“I don’t deserve you.” She mumbled quietly into the kiss, before pulling back, feeling sweaty and defeated. But the face that she was looking at was not Rachel’s, but someone that she had never imagined herself kissing, a certain obsessive nerd, who looked just as confused as she did. Noah. Audrey and Noah just stood there for a moment, asking themselves the same question over and over in their heads. ‘What did I just do?!’

“Z-Zoe I…” Noah said, looking over at said girl, who Audrey hadn’t even noticed had walked up, simply because she had been shocked into a stupor. She felt as if she couldn’t control her own body as Zoe pulled Noah into a short, tender kiss, then turned to her, connecting their mouths slowly but sweetly. 

~~~~~~~~

Noah hadn’t call her. Why hadn’t Noah called her? They were best friends, right? So, after everything that happened, she thought he would’ve called her by now. But no, she understood why he had neglected to call him last night, or answer her many calls, they both extremely freaked out, because they didn’t know what this meant for their relationship. The whole thing had driven her cut again, because, for some odd reason, she had liked it. Maybe because she thought it was Rachel, or maybe it was because of the drugs. Yeah, the drugs.

“Hey!” Noah said, walked next to her car, and leaning on it ever so slightly, looking uncomfortable and nervous. And she couldn’t help but be uncomfortable herself, not because of what happened, but because it felt so  _ unnatural _ for Noah to be so nervous just because of her presence. They had always been each other’s safety blankets, and you they had always found shelter in each other, they had always felt  _ comfortable  _ with each other, and now this. This, unnerving tension between the two of them, she wasn’t gonna lie, it kind of scared her, since she never wanted to lose him. “So uh, last night was… weird.” 

“Yeah, don’t do drugs kids.” She said as she collected her books from the mess that was her trunk, trying to regain their usual attitude, whilst trying to stay away from any prying questions he might have. She glanced over at him for a moment, seeing that he looked like he was desperately trying to articulate something in brain. “You good?” She asked as she shoved her last book into her bag, eyeing him oddly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He said, much too quickly, causing her to raise an eyebrow, as she pulled the trunk of her car down, shutting it with a blunt  _ thud _ . She glared at him suspiciously, watching him squirm slightly under her intense gaze, silently willing him to just spill his guts and make this easy on her. “Okay uh, I do actually have, uh, a couple of things something to say, or ask. Before we… ya know… kissed, you apologized to me, and then said ‘I’m paying for it my own way’ what was that about?” He asked innocently, and while externally she looked calm and indifferent, internally she was more panicked than she had ever been in her entire life. She hadn’t actually said that, had she? Most of the night after getting drugged was a blur to her, with the exceptions of the three-way make out session, and the ever to vivid hallucinations of her friends dead bodies.

“Weird, don’t remember that, must’ve been the drugs, it was all about the drugs.” She said, trying to keep her voice steady despite the fact that she could see that her hands were visibly shaking. She knew why, it was because he was just so _close_ , one more question and he would discover the things she did to herself when no one was watching. _Just stop asking question Noah,_ She thought, trying not to let her fear show on her face. “Probably not for her though, she likes you, I can tell, try not to screw it up, okay?” She said, walking off and trying to distract Noah, successfully doing so, and when he turned his head towards her, she bolted in the other direction. She was so dead set on getting out of there she didn’t notice Stavo, who was right in her path, looking down at his phone. She crashed into him, in the middle of the otherwise vacant hallway, sending both of them crashing to the ground, with Audrey landing awkwardly on top of Stavo.

“Sorry,” she muttered, pushed herself off of Stavo, and getting to her feet. He quickly followed her drift, simply giving her a slightly angered glare. She met his gaze for a second, expecting him to walk in favor of supporting Brooke during the assembly, but he just stood there glaring at her as if he saw something everyone else didn’t. “What?” She asked, feeling her temper beginning to rise, because if had something to say, he should just say it and stop creeping her out.

“That’s the second time you’ve knocked into me within the last twenty-four hours.” He stated, which was true, now that she thought about it. It hadn’t been on purpose either time, and Stavo didn’t think she had done it just to piss him off… did he? She straightened her back, and glared back at him, suddenly throwing on a defensive front.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She spat angrily, crossing her arms over her chest. Stavo knew that she was suspicious of him, and she believed that he was suspicious of her as well. Stavo smirked, amused at how easy it was to get a rise out of the small, raven-haired girl in front of him. He wanted to find out how easy he could get her with his annoyingly vague statements. “You got problem with me, you wannabe vincent van gogh?” She asked, stepping into his personal space, and getting up in his space.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Both of you calm down, especially you Audrey.” A small panicked voice came from their right, and they turned into unison, seeing Noah, looking slightly distressed, probably because he knew about his best friends anger issues all too well. She rolled her eyes, stepping away from Stavo, but not stopping glaring, to which he responded by waving at her slightly and smirking, before walking off to join the assembly.

“One day, please just let me kick someones ass when they piss me off.” She said, turning back to look him, with all the anger in her blue eyes dissipated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You were wrong, ya know.” Noah said once they had found two seats next to each other in the middle of the large, crowded, auditorium. She looked over at him, confusion clear on her face, as she raised an eyebrow at him. He met her gaze, and continued. “About the Zoe thing, she doesn’t like me. In fact, she thinks I like you.” Audrey’s heart skipped a beat, she knew Zoe liked Noah, so she couldn’t understand why she had turned him down at all. But that’s not what freaked her out, Zoe thought that he  _ liked  _ her. It wasn’t even that, because she knew that Zoe didn’t know him as well as she did, what made her question everything was the fact that, for a moment, she felt excitement boil in her heart. Excitement that she quickly buried.

“I doubt it, she was probably just freaked out about last night. Give her a bit.” Audrey said, and Noah just looked defeated, which caused her to feel a little down as well, because he was upset that Zoe had rejected him, meaning she was the one he liked.  _ Why am I upset about this? _ She asked herself, but she couldn’t find an answer to her question, and she wasn’t about to ask him. Finally, she zoned back in, and saw that his face held an incredibly sad expression, making her regret worrying about her silly feelings.“Look, Noah, even if she doesn’t like you, it’s her loss, okay? She rejected you, so obviously she’s an idiot, Noah, okay?” She said, trying to brighten his mood, however slightly.

“Thanks Aud.” He said, flashing her a small, yet genuine, smile. She rested her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his arm and rubbing it gently, trying to comfort him as best as she could. She didn’t deserve him, poor, sweet Noah, and all she could think was if he ever found out what she did, he wouldn’t be sweet little Noah anymore, he’d be mad, he’ be  betrayed, and he’d be done with her.

Noah rested his head head ontop of her hers, and they just sat there happily, cradled in eachothers arms. Until Audrey felt a cold, hard, glare on her, she scanned the room, looking for the source, and that’s when she saw Zoe. Giving her the most hostile glare she had ever seen, and she thought she knew why, because Noah looked comfortable and safe with her, in other words she was jealous.But her attention was quickly moved back to the stage, where the teacher showed up at the podium, with the list of finalists for the Lady of the Lake. making Audrey take her head of Noah’s shoulder so she could pay attention, and root for Brooke.

Names of girls she didn’t know were called, yet she clapped for them, but she didn’t clap for Zoe, not because she was jealous, but because she knew it would make Noah feel better knowing that she was on his side. She clapped as loud as she possibly could as Brooke’s name was called, and the blonde girl strode onstage calmly. Brooke’s eyes skated to all her friends, first Emma, who was smiling widely, then Kieran, who was sitting beside her and clapping with his stoic face on. She looked around, and saw Stavo, obviously sketching the entire situation, but smiling nonetheless, and she let her gaze move over to where Audrey and Noah were sitting, clapping and smiling happily, then to the empty seat Jake was supposed to be in and Audrey saw flicker of sadness and anger cross her eyes, but she quickly smiled, covering it up.

Then it happened, then banner was lowered, and Audrey watched in horror as sticky, red blood poured onto Brooke’s head, coloring her light hair a deep, ugly red, as a familiar body fell from the ceiling, and landed at her feet. Jake. Audrey’s heart speed, up and she gripped the fabric of Noah’s shirt. She was suddenly grateful because at least it looked like she was only acting like this because her friend was dead, and not because she feared what the killer was planning to do with this.

  
Brooke screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot of setup for the coming chapters, that i'm incredibly excited to write. This didn't end on cliffhanger, but the next one will... sorry!
> 
> Please review!


	6. Lockdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, for this and my other fics, but I'm getting back into these stories and my inspiration is coming back, so look forward to more parts! I want to thank everyone who left Kudos, and give a extremely grateful hug to everyone who commented, I love you guys! I'm glad you like my writing enough to keep coming back.
> 
> Please Review1

“I should’ve said something.” She muttered to herself, ashamed at pissed at herself, because this was  _ her fault,  _ yet she still decided to be selfish and hide Jake’s death for the sake of keeping her secret. Damn, she was so  _ stupid _ , and she felt so  _ useless _ . What she did was almost as bad as killing him, and she couldn’t help but believe that it should be her with her guts splayed out on that stage.

“What?” Brooke called from inside the shower, her voice cracking and breaking, which only made Audrey fell worse. Brooke was broken, very obviously  _ broken _ . Audrey wanted to comfort her, but her thoughts kept her from doing just that.  _ Who’s fault is it that she’s this broken  _ She asked herself mentally,  _ oh right, you, because all you ever do to this town is hurt it, maybe it’s time for the town to get revenge on you.  _ Her thoughts made her tear up, not because of how brutal they were, but because she knew they were right.

“No.” Brooke admitted, and Audrey heard the shower shut off and Audrey heard the water turn off as Brooke finished her shower, so she quickly wiped her eyes and made herself look like nothing, other than Jake’s death of course, was wrong. She watched as Brooke pulled the shower often, revealing herself. She had a towel wrapped around her, and her face was blotchy, but at least now she wasn’t drenched in her late boyfriend’s blood. “This all seems so unreal, I was just texting him!” She cried, holding the towel up with one hand and wiping her tears with the other.

“What? What do you mean?” She asked, and only hoped it didn’t sound suspicious, but Brooke was too distressed to even care much. She just walked over to her, grabbing her phone from a nearby table. Audrey felt like how Brooke looked, but she couldn’t show it, because it would look weird for her to be this upset about Jake’s death. Yes, they had gotten relatively close, but it had only been around three months of them being friends, not like Brooke, who had had him around her entire life. Said girl snapped Audrey out of her stupor, by putting her phone in her face.

“See for yourself.” She said, watching as she swiped to open the phone and clicked her way to the ‘messages’ app. It didn’t take long to find his name in the collection, since she had texted him last. Her ringed thumb clicked on him, and she was horrified at the fact that the killer had been texting as Jake for quite a few days. She gulped, handing Brooke back her phone, and trying to figure out something to say, but Brooke wasn’t finished. “I was so rude to him Audrey! All those horrible things I said, and I didn’t even say it to his face, I texted it to him! We were fighting, and now, I’ll never get a chance to apologize.” Brooke said, letting more tears fall, to which Audrey just pulled her into a tight hug, even though she was still wet from the shower.

“Hey, hey, Brooke, he knew you loved him, and he was so hopelessly in love with you, that he could never let himself believe that you hated him.” She said, ignoring the fact that he clothes were slowly soaking up the water that clung to Brooke’s skin. She just rocked the blonde girl back and forth, trying to stop the tears that were escaping her eyes. Once Brookes breathing had calmed, she pulled back, keeping her hands on Brookes shoulders as she looked into her eyes. “Even though you said that, you know it probably wasn’t him, it was probably his…” Audrey said, letting her sentence fade because she didn’t want to hurt Brooke.

“Killer.” Brooke completed, with a breathy voice that caused a flood of guilt to go over Audrey, making her want to cut, again. But she tried to swallow the feeling as best as she could, even though that meant she was going to have to sit in her unbearable guilt until they finally let them all leave. The look on Brooke’s face didn’t help either, but Audrey felt she couldn’t look away, she had to see what she had done to this town, and the people in it. She watched as Brooke shook her head slightly, accidentally spraying water everywhere, as she looked around for clothes. “Do they have anything for me to wear? Or do they just want me to wander the halls naked?” She asked, obviously trying to change the subject, and Audrey happily obliged, picking up the cheer leading uniform and holding it up.

“This is a joke? Right?”

***

Audrey pushed her hway into the study hall room where they were keeping the students who had stayed for the assembly. The first thing her eyes looked for was a tall boy with brown hair, who was talking to none other than Zoe Vaughn. She couldn’t explain it, but seeing them so close after Zoe had apparently dumped him pissed her off. And there was something else there too, something that connected to the words ‘He ran to her, he’ll always run to her’, deep down, she knew what it was, Jealousy, but she wasn’t ready to admit it. She knew she didn’t deserve him, or his kindness, so she let her facial expression become a glum one, and started to walk off.

“Audrey!” she heard someone chirp, probably Emma, since she was probably wondering how Brooke was doing, but to her surprise, Noah was jogging over to her. His flannel was billowing behind him slightly, and a concerned, yet sad, look on his on face as he came up to her. She wanted to keep walking, because of the little voice in her head telling her she doesn’t deserve him, but the reality of the situation was, she’s weak. The only person who she could confide in was gone, and she wanted comfort from the boy who had always been by her side, as much as she didn’t deserve it. 

One look at her distressed face, and Noah had his arms around her small form, hugging her tightly to him. She wrapped her scar clad arms around him too, clenching the material of his flannel into her fists, because she didn’t want to let go of him, she didn’t want to lose him. Noah leaned down and kissed the top of her head, taking as much comfort from the hug as he was giving. For Audrey, it was a moment of relief and safety from the rest of the world, from the razors on her bedside table, from the killer, from her guilt, even though she knew that Zoe was glaring at her intensely. They stayed there, holding onto to each other, for who knows how long.

“Hayley Meyers? You're needed for questioning.” A police officer announced, and they pulled apart to look at the officer that was looking at a certain brunette that Audrey knew all too well. But, she didn’t expect her the girl - Hayley - to turn towards her with a sour, accusatory look on her face. Noah immediately straightened his posture, and Audrey simply glared through her long, black bangs, giving off an aggressive vibe.

“What did they ask you?” Hayley spat to Audrey nastily, with her red-headed friend crossing her arms in an attempt to seem threatening, but it just came across as bitchy. The cop that had come to get her was looking impatient, so she keep herself from blowing up on Hayley.

“They haven’t questioned me yet.” She said simply, yet coldly, and Hayley rolled her eyes as she turned around, mumbling something about how her being questioned made no sense. The cop followed her out of the room, eyeing Audrey suspiciously for a second, before closing the door behind them, and walking swiftly down the hallway. Audrey stayed in her defensive pose, staring at the closed door, and she didn’t even notice Noah walk away to go and talk to Zoe again.

“Hey, Audrey!” A quiet voice came from somewhere on her right, snapping her out of her trance, and when she looked over, she saw Emma’s head poking out from around a bookcase. She looked distressed, but like she was trying to hide it, and she started heading over to her quickly, and turned her head to make a confused and concerned face at Noah. That was when she noticed he was gone, her eyes found him and Zoe, talking with almost no space in between them, and Audrey felt a pang on her heart. Especially when Zoe pulled Noah into an intimate hug, her eyes locked with Audrey’s, and she gave her a look that seemed to say ‘see? I can do this too’.

Audrey just turned back to Emma before she got to upset and angry, and strode over, ducking around the bookcase and coming face to face with a concerned Kieran, and a panicked Emma. She understood why both of them seemed off, but why were they being to secretive about it? What’s the point? Everyone had seen Jake’s body fall, and if they hadn’t because they were looking at their phones, they were late, or they were going to the bathroom, they found out pretty fast.

“Hows Brooke?” Kieran asked, which confused her slightly since she could tell they had something they wanted to tell her. But, she passed it off as he was just trying to make sure his friend was okay, and give Emma a moment to compose herself. She leaned against the bookcase, eyeing them suspiciously, trying to figure out what they were hiding. And that thought sent her into overdrive, she didn’t know why, but she started panicking.  _ Did someone else die? Do I have another body to add to my count?  _ She thought, trying not to let it show on her face.  _ Oh god, do they know?!  _ She subconsciously touched her wrist, but only Kieran seemed to notice her strange behaviour.

“She’s…” She started, trying to take the attention off herself, but hesitant to tell Emma about how horrible Brooke truly was at this point. The bookcase was practically the only thing supporting her, so she took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure before Kieran asked her if she was alright. She knew he was going to, she could see the question written all over his stubble clad face. “wrecked, they’re keeping her in solitary, away from gen pop, for obvious reasons.” She finished, and hoped that Emma would freak out, since Brooke is her best friend, but she seemed more focused on something else.

Emma reached into her bag, pulling out something small, handheld and silver out of it. Audrey wasn’t sure what it was, she thought it was a phone at first, but why would Emma be freaking out about her phone? Had the killer texted her? She found herself reaching forward and snatching it before Emma even got the chance to reach out and hand it to her. She pulled it to herself, pressing to ‘Home Screen’ button to turn it on, and furrowing her brows in confusion. This was….

“It’s Jake’s yeah, I checked.” Emma said, obviously trying to hold back tears, which made Kieran rub her arm in an attempt to comfort her. But Audrey was entranced by the phone in her hands, she turned it over, only to see blacks marks made on the back of the phone. It read ‘Property of Jake’ and those words alone made her want to vomit, this guy had taken her friends phone off his dead body, or maybe he was alive when he took it, still, he stole it, and had been pretending to be Jake for the last few days. The thought alone was completely revolting. “The Killer planted it in my backpack… and now I have to figure how to explain that to the Sheriff.” Emma started, but Audrey was not prepared to let her do that.

“No! Emma, look.” She licked her lips, trying to think of a way to explain her thought process that didn’t make it sound like she was the killer, or reveal certain… things. Kieran looked at her, furrowing his brows in confusion. Since she had taken so long to respond, Emma just turned around and tried to leave again, but Audrey grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “Look, whoever this is. Whoever’s doing this. This is a game to them, okay? It’s a sick, and it might be a game to them, but to us, It’s life or  _ death _ .” She said, putting emphasis on her final word to get her point across.

Emma covered her mouth to cover up a choked sob, but she shook her head all the same. She was breaking, and Audrey felt selfish and horrible, so, she reached over, pulling her into a tight, protective hug.

***

Audrey shrunk into herself as she saw Stavo walk up to his tablet, looking at it mournfully before picking it up, and shoving it roughly in his bag. She felt horrible, because even if he was some nutjob who liked doodling dead people, he didn’t deserve that. ‘It’s not what you think! It’s just a comic!’ his words kept ringing through her mind, including the tone, the panic and fear is quivering voice. She looked down, trying to think of what he could she could do to make this right, but as he started walking away, she decided to just apologize.

“I’m gonna go say something.” She muttered, throwing her phone lightly onto her backpack, and standing up from her chair. Noah looked like he wanted to stop her, not that she saw, to keep her from doing something stupid and making it worse, but when he the phone lying on top her bag, he knew he had to look, especially after they’re strange conversation earlier ‘ _ I meant texts!’  _ No, she meant calls, he could tell, after all, that’s what she had said. And that scared the shit out of him, he was worried for his best friend, for her safety, because it was obviously not a prank, not anymore. But even though Noah was being very conspicuous about it, Audrey hadn’t noticed, she just tried to apologize to Stavo. “I’ll pay to fix or… replace it.” she said shakily.

“Stay away from me, or I’ll break something you love.” Stavo replied threateningly, turning away from her without another word and stalking out of the room, and through the door, she could see Stavo walk up to Brooke, who was standing alone in the hallway, and pull her into a hug. Audrey turned away, feeling even more guilt start to well up in her chest. BRooke was sad because of her, Stavo was hurt because of her, Emma was scared because of her, everything was dangerous, because of  _ her _ .

She did this. And she was going to pay for it, in her own way.

“That went more lord of flies than I was expecting.” Noah said, pulling her out of her thoughts as he walked up to her, with her backpack in his hand. She took it roughly away from him, not because she was angry at him, but because she was angry at herself, and wasn’t sure she could suppress her tears much longer. Her hands were shaking, so she just tossed the bag over her shoulder trying to cover it up by keeping them occupied.

“Yeah, the whole day.” She muttered, starting to charge out of the room as she felt tears spill over, and drip down his reddening cheeks. It frustrated her, because she wanted to talk to Noah, and she managed to get through the whole day without bursting into tears, but the second she had something she really wanted to talk about, they decided to overpower her. She wanted to explain to him that she wasn’t being paranoid for no reason, she wanted to tell him that she had reason for the way she acted. 

“I was joking!” Noah said defensively, but she was already gone, and oddly enough, Zoe followed, leaving Noah alone in the hall. She felt bad, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn around, she just charged out of the building, not stopping until she reached the side of the building. Not many people had noticed her, or if they did, they hadn’t said anything. Everyone except Zoe, you had followed her. Just as she turned the corner so that no one could see her, Zoe popped out as well, wearing a sour expression on her face. She tried desperately to fight her tears back down, even though they were already pouring out of her eyes and slipping down her face.

Zoe looked terrifying to her, and she didn’t know if it was because of how she was feeling, or because of the fact that she had hugged Noah earlier. Either way, she was not looking forward to anything Zoe was about to say or do.   
  


***

Audrey threw the door of her bedroom open, barreling inside, not even bothering to shut the door behind her. She didn’t care anymore, no one cared, not about her at least, Zoe had made that evidently clear when she followed Audrey earlier. It wasn’t for a friendly talk, or anything even remotely like that, it was because Zoe was jealous, and she obviously didn’t deal with that well in Audrey’s opinion. Zoe was right. Everything Zoe said was right, no matter how viciously she had said it.

_ “Stop clinging onto Noah like he’s your lifeboat, if he wanted to date you, he would be doing it already, or he would’ve at least shown some interest in you. Ya know, like how he treats me.” She said venomously as she watched tears stream down Audrey’s face, a smug smile tugged at her lips. Zoe wasn’t going to let Audrey take Noah from her, not some dyke who apparently can’t even choose a side, and feels the need to be into both guys  _ and _ girls. _

_ “You’re just a friend to him, nothing more, a poorly picked friend, obviously. But we both know what happens to friends, they come and go, and the day will come when you and Noah aren’t in each others lives anymore. Oh, but I will be, I will be on Noah’s arm.” She said, laughing a little as she pictured how cute they would be together. _

Once Audrey was on her bed,  grabbed her razor, she didn’t even bother putting it into the jar these days, she only ever did it when she knew someone was coming over, other than her dad, of course. Her dad never came in her room, they barely ever talked, and if they did, it was about how much of a failure Audrey was.

She let out a sobs, rolling up her sleeves and barely giving herself any time to think, she just plunged it into her arm, making a new line that mingled with the rest. She pulled it out of her arm, watching blood drip off the razor, and drip down her arm. She pressed it back into her arm, taking it slow this time, and relishing in the pain she felt she deserved. Until, she heard footsteps, she thought for a moment that it was her being paranoid, she almost always was, especially when she had all of her scars exposed like this. So, she just pressed it deeper in her arm. But that was when she heard a voice, and looked up to she the person it came from, staring at her.

 

“What the hell?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no, who do you think found out? Emma? Kieran? Noah? Brooke? Stavo? Eli? Zoe? Her dad? Comment and tell me your guesses, I really wanna hear!
> 
> Please Review!


	7. Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS TOOK SO LONG I HAD SEVERE WRITER'S BLOCK I'M SORRY. But here it is, and if you left a kudos thank you so so so much, and if you comments you're the real mvp.
> 
> Please Review!

Stavo knocked on the door, doing that because it was evident that the doorbell had been smashed by someone. When he got no answer, he knocked again, he was sitting outside Audrey’s house, clutching his smashed tablet in his hand. He was planning on charging in there, determined to get her to fulfill her promise to pay to fix it. All he wanted to do was write a damn comic, and she was a horror fan too, she should've understood, but apparently good taste didn’t make her  _ not  _ an asshole.

When she didn’t answer for a third time, he just tried the door, surprisingly, it was unlocked.  _ Careless  _ he thought, a body had just been dropped from the ceiling, announcing this killers return, and she had still left her door unlocked. He pushed his way inside, closing the door behind him, and locking it. He may have hated her, but he didn’t want her to meet a gruesome end, those were just fantasies. His eyes scanned the house, he had no idea where she was, but as he looked around, he saw that the door in an upstairs bedroom was open, and a light was shining out. The shattered tablet in his hand kept him angry as he walked onto the creaky staircase and began ascending. The place was clean and empty, and although he remembered Noah saying on his podcast that her mom was out of state, it still felt weird for the place to look so pristine when her dad still lived here. But regardless, he made it up the stairs, and he swore that he could hear something. Was that crying? Stavo picked up his speed, Audrey was strong, she wouldn’t be the one letting out those saddening cries, so who was it? Maybe Emma was here, that would make sense, Audrey and Emma were close, maybe Emma ran here to cry in Audrey’s arms. 

Whatever, he still needed to talk to Audrey, she had this coming. He walked over to the room, about to charge in, but when he saw who was in their, he froze. Audrey was sitting on the floor, tears pouring from her eyes, and she pressed a blade into her arm. He just stared, seeing how her arms were covered in scars, and from how she was acting now, he knew exactly why.

“What the hell?” He said, not loudly, but Audrey still noticed, and looked up, meeting his eyes, and freezing in fear. Blood dripped steadily off her arm, dripping onto her jeans. She was shaky heavily, and Stavo had no idea what to do, he hadn’t expected this to say the least, he had planned to come in here and fight her, or fight the tough side of Audrey he had seen at the school. But now, seeing the weak side that he guessed she rarely revealed, he didn’t want to fight her, he wanted to help her, because regardless of how much they disliked each other, he wouldn’t just let her do this. After some consideration, he sat down next to her, crossing his legs on the ground, but not saying a word. He reached forward swiftly, prying her hand off the razor, and gently pulling it out of her sensitive skin. She looked down, slowly, focusing at some point on the ground, but not fighting anything he was doing.

His eyes scanned the room, eventually landing on the roll of paper towels on her bedside table, it was clear why it was there, so it could be used for the same reason he was going to use it. It wasn’t far, so he could reach while staying sitting, he did so, stretching his torso slightly to reach it.. He wrapped his finger around it, and pulled it back down to him, instantly starting to unravel it slightly, then tearing three pieces off. Audrey still had her eyes locked on the floor, and hadn’t moved aside from her intense shaking. He reached forward, grabbing her left arm, using the the paper towel to carefully dab away the blood without hurting her. He did the same to the other arm, then wrapping some around each arm as a makeshift bandage before he could get something better. 

“Audrey?” He said, trying to get her attention, but she didn’t look up, so he grabbed her face, and turned it so she was looking at him. Her sad blue eyes finally met his, and when he finally got a good look at her face, he pulled her into a hug, it felt uncharacteristic, but he knew she needed the comfort right now, anyone could see that. He almost laughed at the fact that his arms wrapped all the way around her, because she was just that small. For once he noticed just how small she really was, she always seemed like this big unstoppable force, but she was really just a small girl with a big voice. It wasn’t a bad thing, he had just never noticed it before. She was taken aback for a second, but slowly, she raised her bandaged arm up and hugged him back weakly, barely holding on. 

“Don’t you… h-hate me?” She asked, her voice barely a whisper, and he rubbed small circles on her back. He lost himself in his thoughts for a moment, because he had thought that he hated her, of course he wasn’t her biggest fan, but he didn’t hate her, and at this point, he just pitied her. He shook his head slightly, and he knew she felt it, so he didn’t feel the need to say anything more on the topic, but he had a question of his own.

“Does anyone know?” he asked quietly, still holding her, because he didn’t want to be the one pulling away first, he wanted her to feel comforted. But, she pulled away soon, bringing her hands up and wiping her eyes,  and looking at Stavo, who moved so that he was leaning against her bed as well. She played with the ring on her finger for a second, biting her lip in contemplation, but eventually she decided to just tell him.

“No… not anymore.” She confessed, and he found himself to be slightly confused, how could someone just  _ forget _ they saw this, how could someone just  _ forget _ to tell someone, how could someone just  _ forget _ to help her. She clearly saw the confusion in his eyes, because she sighed, closing her eyes for a second in thought, before opening them, but refusing to look at him. “Jake knew… h-he found out, he said he would help me, but now… I don’t think that’s happening.” She said, and he put his hand on her arm to comfort her, but she pulled her arm away harshly, pulling her knees up to her chest, and bowing her head.

“Stay put.” He said, he voiced filled with care, yet it was still firm, because he didn’t want her running off on him when he walked away, he didn’t thinks he would, not right now, but he walked swiftly nonetheless. He pushed his way through the partially open door to his bathroom, hoping that she would have a first-aid kit of sometime. He remembered Noah once mentioning on his podcast that the Lakewood six all kept a first-aid close ever since the first murder spree, just out of caution. Stavo scanned the room, looking for any place where it could be held, and his eyes found the sink cabinet. He strode over, crouched down, and pulled the doors open, revealing that he had been correct, the first-aid kit was there. He grabbed it quickly, shutting the doors, and rushing back to Audrey, who hadn’t even uncoiled since he left. Pity grew in his chest as he walked over to her, setting the kit down, and gently resting his hands on her shoulders reassuringly. 

Carefully, he pulled one of her arms away from her knees, and peeled the paper towels off her still bleeding arms. He opened the kit up, instantly spotting some bandage in it that he could use to wrap her arm again. The paper towels weren’t going to be much of a fix, he knew he had to do this, so, he pulled the bandage out, and wrapped her arm. Once he had finished with that one, he moved onto the other, treating it with the same level of care and concern, then setting it down lightly.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, her voice so broken, that it hurt just to hear it, it hurt to hear her that sad, and he didn’t even know her that well. He wasn’t even sure for what, but then he saw her eyes, that were staring directly at his broken tablet, which was now lying faceup on the floor. He was still mad about that, but now, he couldn’t be like that, he couldn’t be angry, he knew that, ever since his last boyfriend, he knew he would never get mad at someone who was cutting.

“We’ll work it out later, okay?” He said, moving so that he was leaning against her bed with her. He let her rest her heavy head on his shoulder, but didn’t wrap his arm around her, she didn’t seem to mind, she just liked having someone next her. They sat there for a second, before Stavo managed to work out what question he wanted to ask first. 

“Why?” He asked quietly, from what he knew, she didn’t have depression, or anxiety, or any other mental illness, so he ruled that out. What was making her so upset that she would do this? He knew about her mom… maybe it was that, or maybe it was bullying she endured. But, both of those things happened awhile ago, and the scars that lined her arm looked fresh, well, fresh- _ er _ . He looked back up and her face, and he had the sick feeling she wasn’t going to share. “Look, Audrey, I promise I won’t judge, I won’t tell anyone, I want to help.” He said, and saw her facade shatter, and suddenly, everything she had been holding back came flooding out.

“I brought Piper to Lakewood.” She said, making him freeze,  _ She brought that psychopath here? _ Everything clicked into place, she wasn’t saying anything, because she knew everyone would be pissed. He couldn’t bring himself to do, mostly because he hadn’t been there for the original murder spree. “I don’t know I was just, so alone, Emma had left me, I felt so isolated, and I needed a friend, someone who understood, so I found Piper, she swore it wasn’t her, she  _ swore _ .” She ranted, obviously not realizing what she was doing, judging by the look on her face  _ after  _ she had done it.

“So you feel guilty?” He asked, but he already knew the answer, it was obvious that she did, and her nodding her head just backed it up. He looked down, twiddling his thumbs for a moment as he thought of what to say, when he looked back at her, she had her face buried in her hands, and she was shaking roughly. “Well it’s not your-” He began, but she knew what he was gonna say, and cut him off.

“Yes it is.” She simply simply, sniffling as fresh tears poured out of her bloodshot eyes, and as he watched her, he found himself wanting very badly to just get up and go get Noah, go tell him about everything, because he was the one she really needed right now. “Not only did I do that, but now there's another psychopath running amok, killing the people I love. Which is putting me on edge, so now I’m also directly hurting the people around me too, like breaking your tablet, for example.” she admitted, and that's when he noticed she was looking at the tablet again.

“Hey, it’s alright, I mean… yeah, I’m upset about it, but you didn’t understand it’s okay.” He said, and she looked at him, her eyes begging him to elaborate. So, he sighed, and reached forward, grabbing the tablet off the floor. He settled back down, and entered his tablet, opening his drawing app, and passing it to her. “It’s a comic book… I’m trying to tell the story of murder, and it keeps, really bloody at points. I get what it looked like, but… I don’t know, I’ve always been fascinated by death.” He said as she scrolled through the pictures, eventually handing it back when she reached the photo of jake being rolled up in the ‘Lady of the Lake’ banner

“Mhm,” She hummed out.

***

Stavo hadn’t left last night, he had camped out on her floor with some pillows and some blankets from her closet. He had promised her he wasn’t going to leave last night, and she was very grateful for that, because she had a feeling that she would’ve continued if he hadn’t been there to stop her. When she woke up, he was coming out of the bathroom with  _ her  _ toothbrush in mouth. She didn’t her best not to groan or complain because she knew he had just help her, but she had the overwhelming urge to punch him directly in his perfect face.

“Why didn’t you just use my dads or something,” She whined, making sure it sounded relatively playful because she didn’t want to be rude to him right now. Luckily, he smirked, and continued brushing his already perfect teeth, instead of getting defensive. She just rolled her eyes and pushed herself off her bed, and yawned, happy due to the fact that she had actually been able to get some proper sleep. 

“Get over it.” She heard Stavo call from the bathroom, making her roll her tired eyes again as she slid herself out of the bed, noticing that she, sometime the night before, slipped into a tank top. She could see all her scars, the scars that covered her arms, screaming red marks on her pale skin. She ran her fingers over them, feeling how they bumped up at different heights, she left her fingers lingering on one that was almost perfect lined up with a vein, at stared off at someplace on her wall. How she hadn’t killed herself already, she had no idea.

***

She drove Stavo to school that day, chatting about the comic he was making, or the new killer, or anything, with both of them purposely avoiding the topic of what covered her wrists. Stavo had made her a deal, almost the exact same one she had with Jake, which made her wary that maybe the killer would target Stavo next. She couldn’t do that to Brooke, not again, not after Jake, so she silently agreed, and made a note to never take him up on it. If Stavo noticed she was lying when she agreed, then he didn’t say anything.

“Do you think they’ll find it weird that we turn up together after what happened at the school yesterday?” She asked, nonchalantly, but she saw Stavo squirm a little out of the corner of her eyes as she pulled into one of the many parking spaces surrounding the school. He just shrugged and she realized that she should probably have the same attitude, because who cares what other people thought. She had only ever been affected by someone's opinion on her when it was anyone of her fellow Lakewood survivors.

“If anyone says anything we can just ignore them.” He supplied, and that sounded like a very sound plan to her, so she nodded and pushed her car door open,and hopped out, promptly turning back around to grab her bag, then shutting the door behind her. Once she saw Stavo do the same thing, she locked the car, and started walking towards the school, surprised to see that Noah wasn’t waiting for her outside like usual. He always got there before her. Was he sick? She couldn’t know, but she could easily text him and find out. She paused for a second, opening up her bag, and shoving her hand in, look around for her phone. When it wasn’t in the place she usually put it, she frowned, she wouldn’t have put it anywhere else, but she checked anyway. Nothing.  _ Did I leave it at home?  _ She asked herself, but now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember having it at home. Her brow furrowed, but she was distracted as Brooke made her appearance, walking over to Stavo and touching his black eye lightly.

“What happened?!” She asked, and Audrey was struck with the painful knowledge that Brooke had had no idea that it had happened in the first place. Audrey looked away, not sure if she could look Brooke in the eyes right now, but her gaze landed on the boy behind Brooke, Noah. He looked uncomfortable, he wouldn’t look her in the eye, and he seemed pretty desperate to leave. She took two hesitant steps toward him, and he looked up at her, with a defensive and anxious look on his face.

“Noah?” She asked cautiously, stepping toward him, and he immediately took a few steps back, watching her every action carefully. He looked skittish, and she felt that if she took another step in his direction, he might run off in the other direction. She racked her brain, trying to think of why he would be acting like this, he wasn’t like this yesterday, and he didn’t seem freaked out by Brooke or Stavos presence. In fact, he seemed to be clinging oddly close to Brooke at this point.

“Um yeah, that’s uh, that’s me and uh, I actually have to go and grab my thing so uh, i'll text you.” He rambled, before running back into the school. She furrowed her brow, and looked back to Brooke and Stavo, who looked just as confused as she felt. A horrible, gut-wrenching thought crossed her mind, forcing her to gulp, and look at the concrete below

  
He couldn’t be getting suspicious of her… could he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one guessed Stavo, honestly i thought someone would.
> 
> Please Review!

**Author's Note:**

> Please Review!


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